Confess
by FieryxEyes731
Summary: Everything’s different again; House is finding something new and so is she. Season 4 from Chase and Cameron's perspective.
1. Sanctuary

**Disclaimer: Believe me, if I owned House do you think I'd be writing fanfiction for it? Yeah, didn't think so.**_

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Chapter 1: Sanctuary

_You're fired._

_A test. You passed. I didn't._

_He never even told me he was sick. I wish he had. It wou-_

_She wasn't your responsibility.  
I know! She was yours._

_I'm gonna hug you now._

_It's just…I didn't feel like waiting._

_He'll be waiting for you, when you're ready._

_I was fifteen years old when you walked out. Now you're walking back in?  
I left your mother. I didn't leave you._

_Have you ever taken a life?_

_Get the hell out of my way.  
No, I'm-_

Chase jerks himself awake and can still feel House's fist crashing into his jaw. He wipes a few beads of sweat off his forehead and rolls to check the clock. 5:19. He needs more sleep.

He tries to settle down again, but his heart is still pounding in his mind as he brushes more chilling sweat away. He rolls to the other side now, and for a swift moment he's almost shocked to see Cameron next to him. He still half expects her to leave in the night with the protection of the dark, even though it seems like forever ago since she has.

He struggles to fall asleep again, then gives up and succumbs to staring out the window at the growing and fading rays of headlights passing by.

He can't sleep well, anyways. His dreams are full of harsh memories, of regrets, of sorrow. Sometimes he dreams of a maze; he's running away but he can't get out. He's not sure what he's trying to escape from and he has no inkling as to where he's going, but he's almost certain he won't make it out, ever.

-

Today feels different, he notices as the coffee brews and the silence screams in his lungs. Today is the breaking point and he's made up his mind by the time he's handing Cameron a mug.

He's going to see House today. And he doesn't tell her.

-

Chase has been avoiding this hall for three whole weeks now, the hall he used to nearly live in. It's the same as he remembers, and it's crushing how everything and everyone's able to carry on without him.

Maybe House will see him, maybe he won't. It doesn't really matter though; Chase only wants a tiny glimpse at his ex-boss's new beginning. He just wants one slice of insight, one hint of truth as to how his world is carrying on without him in it.

The door seems to call to him naturally, and the pain and familiarity of it all is almost maddening. But suddenly it's gone almost as soon as it's there.

House looks up and the old connection sparks at Chase's shiver of a smile and for a moment, he feels the urgency to walk back in and take what's his. But then the crowd shuffles and he's out of sight out of mind again, he thinks.

Now he can't forget the piles of bills and patient information and God knows what else littering the clear glass table that Cameron no longer takes care of, the new fellows competing for what will be a guaranteed failure once again, and the shock splashed across House's face that really makes Chase hope he regrets this now.

-

"I went today. I saw him."

Chase sounds breathy and bitter, but Cameron doesn't need to question him to understand. "What did he say?"

"Nothing." He grabs the seat across from her and sits down slowly, sinking, falling. "He just looked up as I was walking by. His new fellows were in there too…" He doesn't know what else to say; he can't find the words to describe how much he needs to run back and plead for his job and rip House apart at the same time.

She bites into her sandwich, eyeing him delicately. Being fired really tore away at him, and now she sees he never honestly got over it and almost certainly never will.

"It's bound to happen. And we're going to have to talk to him, too, sooner or later. It's just how life works."

But his pager goes off, she gives him one last pitifully sympathetic glance, and realizes she feels the same way he does.

-

"I do." House's voice carries from above as she leaves the clinic for a moment, but resists the urge to look up. She feels his eyes on her back and knows she can't go on much longer without the past brought into the present.

-

He finds himself drawn to the window, even though he's sure House will notice. (And in a way, he wants him to.) This confrontation has been a long time coming, besides, and a part of him really believes that maybe it could change things for the better.

"Von Hippel-Lindau." The words spill from his lips before he can stop them and all of a sudden he's very aware of how much he doesn't belong anymore. "Raises red blood cell count, causes masses on the organs. One of the masses is a pheochromocytoma. It'd cause neurologic episodes and a heart attack." He's doing this for the _patient_, not for himself, and certainly not for House, he tries to convince the shadows that are always seem to lurk behind him.

But House mutters something to the man next to him and then looks to Chase again, now agitated. "This is a closed procedure. Gallery's off limits."

"Not to the surgical staff." And he abruptly wants House to know everything about the past three weeks and why he should regret firing him and that _no_, he _won't _come back.

"You going to hire that guy instead of us?"

It starts as a joke, then a sincere question to House, but he passes it off to Chase; the man that knows all is speechless and thunderstruck and maybe he has been regretting all along.

But then Chase shakes his head, because as much as he wants to go back and as much as House may want him back, he can't turn back time and he can't turn back himself. He's changed now and whether House sees it or not, the point of return's been left behind, because no one appreciated it then and no one can reach it now.

-

She turns and sees him watching; he's always watching. She takes in a great deal of air, tries her best to seem at ease, and walks over steadily, holding up three fingers. "Three weeks. For someone who never misses something small, you missed something big." Cameron stops and realizes how awful that sounds: it's big her, yes, but for House it hardly seems to matter at all. Everything feels off-kilter now and she feels a bit dizzy, and thinks that she's the one who needs to lie down.

"You're an idiot."

But now she's serious again; her façade was weak to begin with and was so easily broken under House's presence. "The hair, where I'm working, or both?" She now sees the hair was a poor attempt to differentiate the old her from the new, because here she is again falling into the role of House's plaything, and she feels as though she'll never change.

"The hair makes you look like a hooker. I like it."

She's not sure if it's a compliment or an insult, and she's not sure what she wants it to be either.

"Pulling pieces of windshield out of car accident victims and reattaching fingertips sliced off cutting bagels…at least Chase's move is only one step down."

This bites into her deeply; blood trickles down her arm as the sting of his words rip through her veins like wildfire. "I can do good here. Get it out of my system." She admits that everything he thought he knew about her is right, because there's no point in hiding anymore and maybe if he knows something will change. "Why'd you rat out your patient to NASA?"

"I don't know who's been gossiping about ethics instead of sex, but I hope they've already been fired. Which number was it?"

"Greta." And now the secret's out about how she still has an in on his cases, but part of her is almost relieved that he knows this.

"Number!"

She hates how he has to desensitize everything; life's not a game and people _are_ people. "No number. The patient. How do you think she got your pager number? She came into the ER, didn't want to talk…" Now it hurts that he knows, because no matter how hard she tries, she's still this pathetic ex-somebody who just can't let go.

"I didn't rat her out."

"You, _lied_?" She feigns shock but then realizes that it _is_ strange. She resigns, he starts to care…

"Suppose I should tell her that before she keys my car." Always jokes. Always to avoid answers.

"Why lie?" Now she's direct and trying to prove she can be on her own, but it's transparently obvious that this too is a lie.

"Had to stop some leaky faucets."

"Why did it matter?" she demands; subtly's never been her strong suit and she's too curious to hide it anymore.

"It was no one's business."

"Right." It's not fair that she knows more about him than all of the applicants put together, but it's utterly useless. They get to fill her shoes and the icy white tiles are stinging her bare feet.

"She's going to be the safest astronaut up there. Certainly more vigilant than the guy next to her who's got no clue about the aneurysm in his head ready to pop."

"Right," she repeats, because she knows her answer and she wants to leave now, suddenly. She turns to go before his commanding and painfully familiar voice carries her back.

"You got a better reason?"

She stops, wishing that maybe, somehow, he'll relate this to her and right his wrongs and turn her life back around again. "You couldn't kill her dream."

But his stare says it all and she knows her dream is long dead and was probably never alive to begin with as she leaves for real this time, the burning swell of tears pricking at the backs of her eyes.

-

After scrubbing away blood and misery, Cameron heads to Chase's, because they need to talk and maybe more, and she nearly lives there now anyways. The door seems to open a bit too easily with her key and she thinks that maybe she's just avoiding reality again. But she drives the thought away, because she doesn't want to face herself now and she's terrified of what will happen when she does.

She hears the pounding of the shower reverberating through the small apartment as she peels away at her coat and sinks into the couch.

She feels so tiny, so insignificant now. She used to matter to House; she used to count for something. And she knows it's vain, but shouldn't her sudden flight away mean almost as much to him as it does to her? Only he's turned replacing her into a game, and she's lonely and sorry and tinged with anger that she doesn't get to play this time.

And at least Chase has his faith to fall back on, when times are desperate, but whatever Cameron once had has been washed away and left behind nothing but shards of a broken trust.

It takes Chase a little longer than normal to get out of the shower. He knows she's just outside, waiting, but he wants to savor some serenity and even sanity while there's still a chance. But there's too much to say to ignore it all; the air is heavy with unspoken troubles as he inhales the steam filling the room. Finally, deciding he can no longer avoid their shared worries, he steps out of the bathroom, because maybe he does want to talk about it too.

"Hi," she says sharply, anxious and flustered and yet relieved to see him.

"Hey," he replies as calmly as possible, even though rationality is not an option. Life's grown too big to reason out, and even if he finds the answer somebody changes the question again.

"I saw him too. I talked to him." She pauses, because the hurt is still too much and she's almost sort of ashamed. "It's like nothing's changed. He couldn't care less."

Chase falls down next to her on the couch, gently resting his arm around her. "That's just how he is. He'll act like nothing's happened because he doesn't confront his own problems. Only other people's." Now it's his turn to advise, to comfort, but who will comfort him? Who will rescue him? He watches her gaze fall to her lap while she considers. "I talked to him, too. Saw him with the patient…" he feels the need to clarify.

Her eyes dart up to his, because the whole caring thing is embedded too deeply to go away. But he doesn't really want to talk about it anymore so she doesn't push it, and this, her, he grasps, has changed. The old Cameron would have prodded and pried him open until there was nothing left, but now she's different, and he's starting to like it.

"C'mon. Let's go eat," he says a bit too loudly, and his voice seems to echo emptily.

They dine and he still feels strangely hollow, and all of a sudden he needs to be holding her, to touch. He stands to meet her at the sink and tenderly snakes his arms around her waist. "Leave those for later," he says softly, yet urgently into her ear.

She pulls herself out of his hold, clasps his hand, and leads them back to the couch. There's sadness again in her eyes, reflected in his, as she shares their same desperate thought with the empty world amongst them. "We're not going back, are we? He really doesn't need us."

Chase avoids her eyes and the question (because he can't bear to hear the answer) as he finds a large, worn blanket and sets it over them, allowing it to billow and fall down slowly, forming a canopy above for a moment that gently lays to rest. Cameron watches intently. It's their sanctuary, like a child's tent in the yard where they escape from all the rules and share their core-kept secrets and run back inside when something gets too scary.

But she and Chase are in this together; he's all she's got and every so often she thinks she doesn't even deserve this. They're each other's support, though. They save the other and share the same meaningless hopes and defective dreams, she realizes as she clings to him desperately, dreadfully urgently. He's the only one who can feel her pain because they're both dying of the same infections disease: negligence.

Maybe, though, this is fate's way of showing her what she's been shielding all along. She moves closer and leans into him as everything withers away, and she decides not to go running back inside this time.

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**AN: I've been struggling over deciding whether or not this piece was ready or not, but I think it's a satisfactory intro as for what's to come. I promise there will be more Chase/Cam fluff (or as close as I can get to it) and more plot-like substance. This has gone through a lot of revision and I think it's ready. Suggestions welcome for future chapters. Let me know what you think!**


	2. Alter

**AN: Wow. I'd like to apologize profusely for taking so long on this. I had studying and midterms and writer's block and it wasn't going too smoothly. Now everything is dying down, so future chapters should be up sooner than this. I'd like to thank my beta, enigma731 for some great feedback that helped boost my confidence a bit :) And of course, my readers and reviewers, who are wonderful, as usual. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 2: Alter

_Feels like my touch only brings back the pain.  
__Someday those memories will fade away._

The chilling smell of frost hangs darkly in the air, a sinister sign that they should stay hope wrapped in self-pity and self-doubt until all the hurt goes away. But they both know that it never will, because time has never healed before and it sure as hell won't now.

Cameron shudders as the wind streaks past her cheeks on her way down the driveway, a few steps behind Chase. She slams the car door shut with a bit too much force, and he looks over, startled.

"Sorry," she mumbles. The day's hardly begun and all she wants to do is sleep it away. She can picture House's remarks on why they've shown up late and how he could twist it until she snaps, but then her stomach flops when she realizes that he won't even know.

"'S all right," Chase replies quietly, exhaustion seeping from his pores as he shifts into reverse. "Something wrong?"

She wants to say yes, but instead she shrugs it off, a tangle of love mingled with hate and hope mingled with despair trapped deep in her throat.

"So that's a yes, then."

"I'm fine. Let's just go." She glances over quickly, but he catches her wrist in his hand and holds on tightly.

"No. You're not." He puts the car back in park and shifts in his seat a bit. "What's wrong?"

There's something about him that sees beyond the lies, Cameron thinks as she bites her lip and stares behind his head at the branches threatening to snap in the wind. "I…miss it," she finally confesses.

He's seen it coming all along, from the moment she told him she'd resigned until the slamming of the car door. He unbuckles his seatbelt, vulnerable and raw, and leans over to wrap his arms around her shattered frame. At first she almost pulls away, because _he's_ the broken one, but there's a sense of belonging in his arms that makes her cling desperately to his jacket while steadying the terror in her breath and her heart that threatens to punch through her chest.

"Cameron." It's not a question, not a statement, but instead something in between. "I miss it too."

-

It's a few hours later and she's fading quickly, even though everything's an emergency and everything's become a nuisance. And of course, to add to the chaos and confusion and clutter in her mind, one of the newbies is following her, questioning her, insulting her intelligence.

"False assumptions. You're good. You're trying to get me to think like him."

"And you're trying to kiss my ass." Cameron doesn't want to play from the sidelines anymore; it's all or nothing and she wants to quit the team that she's not even a part of right now. Cameron stops suddenly and focuses her gaze dead on, because a part of her, a small one that she denies the light of day, enjoys the power that she now has. "Why are you talking to me?" And she knows the answer, but she wants to manipulate the manipulator, to prove she's still a somebody, and a strong one at that.

"Because House is turning patient care into a game. It's dangerous. The patient is going to suffer- maybe die."

Cameron knows what's happening; she's known all along. But it's that caring thing again that never leaves and she can't turn this replacement her (something bitch?) away empty-handed. "What are they symptoms?"

-

"Hi," Chase says, caught unaware, like so many nights ago when they started this, when the future was unpredictable and the air was still warmed with hope.

"Hey." She's sitting in the surgeons' lounge, because there's nowhere else to escape to and no one else to search for. "Are you on break? We could get lunch."

But it's already three, and there's a sadness in his eyes that tells her too many people are dying today. "Sorry, no time. I just finished up a surgery and came in to get a sandwich real quick." A pause. "Want one?"

The way he now avoids her gaze, looks down at the worn, green carpeting, tells her that his day's been worse than hers and if Chase's patient didn't die in surgery, then he's going to soon anyway.

"Sure," she replies, because he needs someone too, and they're the only ones who've noticed the earth's been spinning faster than it should.

Chase spreads mustard over some bread as silence descends and turns their bones to ice. Because right now- the surgery and the ER--they're supposed to be temporary. Because House is supposed to need them back, to change, to gain one ounce of humility and make things return to the way they're meant to be. He's the only one who can. Because they really can't accept that he's _not_ coming back this time, and neither is the rest of the world.

Chase hands her a sandwich, sliced cleanly down the middle, and joins her on the couch. "So how's today going?"

She sighs heavily; she hates how her goal is to just get through the day. How nothing at work is even exciting, much less bearable. How the hope she lives for is dwindling quickly, and she doesn't know who she'll be when nothing's left.

"Okay." She's about to return his question, but his piercing stare says that he knows there's more. "One of the new fellows stopped by." She waits for a reaction- jealousy, anger, anything- but there isn't one. "Trying to con me into telling her how to win House over." She waits again. "And I gave in."

He looks like he almost wants to smile, but holds back, as he usually does. "Why?"

"Because he's playing games again. He has the women against the men competing for diagnosing diagnosis. Whichever team loses is fired. He's gambling the patient's life. I was helping the _patient_. Not that blonde fellow." He looks unconvinced, a looks she's been receiving a lot from him lately. "And not for House."

He wants to say something, to defy her, she can tell, but thinks better of it. But then, something new comes. "You got something against blond doctors?"

And there's a daring spark in his eyes that rids the air of doubt and lies and fear, that makes her want to keep him forever, whole and all for herself.

"Not really." Her voice has shrunk to nearly a whisper, gentle as morning dew dripping from a brand new flower petal. "They're just a bit cocky."

He wants to pin her up against the wall and laugh into her mouth right now, but suddenly she's on top of him, kissing him fast and hard, and he can't even begin to absorb how much she's changed again. But then the door opens and shuts a little more loudly than usual and she's standing over him just as abruptly.

Chase feels his skin grow hot as the other surgeon fights to wipe the stupid grin off his face. Then Cameron gently pushes a longer lock of his golden hair out of his eyes, softly speaks "see you later", and slides out the door, quiet and beautiful.

"You guys are really something," the doctor says finally. But instead of turning away in embarrassment like he would have six months ago, Chase grins and nods, because things are starting to fall into place and he'd never expected Cameron to act this open. Because maybe there is hope, after all.

-

"Do you think House could be wrong?"

He's heard she's supposedly fired, but here she is nonetheless, digging again at the past he's trying so hard to bury.

"I thought he fired you."

"No. He fired the men."

He stares for a moment, seeing the drive that he once had, to prove himself to House as if nothing else mattered-.Nothing else had mattered. He finally gives in though, because maybe establishing House as wrong just once will do him some good in the end.

But of course, House is right; he's always right when it really matters. "Don't think he's wrong." The defeat still hovers, even when House doesn't.

"If he is, how would I prove it?"

Apparently short answers that aren't what she's looking for can't get her to go away, and Chase really,_ really_ wants to bury this.

"Just said I don't think he is."

"Well thinking isn't good enough."

Chase wants to roll his eyes or maybe bang his head against the wall, because she's almost as good as he is, and he's already graduated from his fucked-up fellowship under House.

"You'd have to run a blood test for anti-sentriamia antibodies."

"Would you mind running the tests?"

But she's not quite as good as he is yet, because the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes confirms what he's suspected all along.

"You can't."

"Well, I can, but…"

He turns to face her now because she's given him power and he suddenly needs to use it. "No, I was making a statement. You've been fired, so you no longer have lab privileges. You were coming here to con a favor to save your job. Sorry, I'm not working for him anymore, but he can still make my life miserable." He starts to leave now, because who he's become is not going to be manipulated any longer.

"You have a chance to make his life miserable."

He stops and considers; revenge has never been part of the plan but it's impossible to escape once the idea's been planted. He turns again, and then remembers manipulation, Cameron, and the rest of the world around him that doesn't need to involve House anymore.

"I'm insulted. You conned Cameron by appealing to her humanity." He almost feels pity for this Amber, because her reputation's made her a threat and she's a valuable loss to House, and whether House sees it or not, it's just too late.

"I told her what she wanted to hear."

"And you told me what you thought I wanted to hear." Now he's made out to be bitter, lost. But she's devoted, too- background checks on them and everything, and he feels exposed now as he wonders what else she's found out about the sting of the past.

"If it's any consolation, I think your motives are more interesting."

He's stunned and almost impressed at how far she's willing to go, how hard she's willing to work, just to get a job that changes every old view of people and truth and life. "I cannot believe he fired you. Go draw his blood. Meet me in the lab when you're done."

This time he really does leave, because he doesn't need to be caught, to be connected to the scene of the crime, because he still has lives to save and graves to visit.

-

Amber desperately wants to be there for the tests, as if his touch is tainted and he'll taint the blood too. But she knows not to push her luck off the edge until it falls and cracks, so she leaves him to work in the silence, the way he wanted but now almost can't bear.

The door opens and he turns sharply, positive that it's House, because he's always known and he always will. But it's Cameron, and though his heart's still pounding it's no longer about to burst.

"What are you doing in here? I've been looking all over and-"

"I gave in too," he cuts in, sparing her a fraction of a glance before hiding away again.

She smiles sadly, because neither one of them is ready to take flight quite yet and they've already been pushed over, but at least she's got someone to hold onto and fall with for eternity.

-

"I could have you fired!"

House's voice breaks cleanly through the air, inviting all to listen, to watch him shame another man today.

Chase turns around calmly though, innocent and clear. "You've already had me fired."

"Which just proves that I can."

Cameron takes a step back into the dimness; her battle has yet to come and she's not quite ready to fight. But something seems to pass through Chase then and there, like the ghost of change, and he's suddenly able to let go and fly.

"Were the men wrong?"

"No. That doesn't change the fact that-"

"Why are you yelling at me?" She sees his eyes narrow, not in retained anger, though, in curiosity, in defiance.

"Because performing tests for someone who is not a doctor in this hospital-"

"You're frustrated," Chase slides in again, and all House can do is listenas the table turns and Chase is now sitting at the head of it. "If you want help, I'm here. If you just need to vent," he pauses; the spotlight is still on him but the audiences' scrutinizing eyes have blurred away along with all of his fears and insecurities, "leave a message."

They all know House doesn't want help, and especially not from them. So Chase turns and heads towards the exit as she holds up her hand to tell him she's coming, just wait, please.

This chance is too good to pass, though; she never gets to beat House, never gets to win. "I like him better this way." Cameron can't help but grin because House is who created _this way_ and who has to suffer the consequences, once, just once. "You?"

She gives him the same shadow of a wave, tentatively, but this one's not a 'wait for me' or an 'I'll miss you'. It's a final goodbye, unsteady and almost unreal, but the time has come to leave, and this _is_ for real.

-

He hears her shoes clicking louder and louder, until she meets him near his car, cheeks reddening and breathing unsteady. "Chase."

Only his name makes him turn and swallow the bitter pain of growth and change that's overcome him. But she's done nothing to anger him, she's here for him now, he's just scared to know how long until she's gone too.

"Chase," she repeats, inches away and moving closer, because his gaze is off in the distance at a point she can't yet see.

"Hmm," he mumbles, expecting a lecture or a scolding or a refusal of touch.

"Chase, look at me."

He brings himself into focus, the dusky light from above sending a shot of warmth through him. He slides his eyes to hers, brilliantly green and sincere, yet laced with uncertainty.

"I love you."

His tongue is all of a sudden too dumb to move as his legs lock and his breathing stops altogether. But he maintains the connection and tries to show her what his mouth can't. This feels more real and true than anything in his life before, but he's never been one with words no matter how honest they are. He finds connection by touching her cheek before he can talk, but once their skin connects to prove she's really there, speaking seems unusually easy.

"I love you too."

He can feel the relief flood from cheek to hand as he brushes his fingers softly, carefully, across her delicate skin. They stand for a moment longer and then he brings his lips to hers and everything falls into a new place, the way God had always intended it to.

He drives them to his place and they can hardly make it to the bed; love and sorrow and revolutions are tangled up in the bed sheets, marking their new domain with cries and pleasure and anguish sewn between them. But this time there _is_ love, and it seems to melt away at the shades of misery for one small moment, and it's _this_ small, defining moment that weaves them together and carves their promises into stone.

-

"…electrocuted himself…"

"I have no idea why…"

"Did you hear about Dr. House?"

Curiosity gets the better of her; it always does. "What happened to House?" She's earned knowing this and they haven't, yet she always feels so out of the loop.

The nurse darts her eyes around, almost as if Cameron's not allowed to hear. "Last night he electrocuted himself… to prove something to a patient, I heard. I think he's in the ICU."

The nuse is hardly done speaking when Cameron takes off down the hall, blind with panic and aching with anger.

-

"What the hell happened?" She bursts through Cuddy's door; Wilson's nowhere to be found and the thought of seeing House right now makes her swell with revulsion. She left a part of herself behind in diagnostics, her innocent belief in good and people and truth, and she desperately wants it back from him.

Cuddy looks up slowly, tiredly, and almost seems to shrink under Cameron's scowl. "He stuck a knife into a socket. A damn pocket knife into an electrical socket…"

Cameron sinks into a chair across the desk and stares at her deep blue shoes. There's a long silence, full of ugly what-ifs and strangling doubts and unleashed infuriation at a man so stubborn, so wasted, so annoyingly right and contagiously lonely.

"He was trying to disprove the existence of the afterlife to some car crash victim. Honestly, he just doesn't know where to draw the line," Cuddy says finally to break the stillness.

Cameron nods, because she's got nothing new to contribute because nothing new's been offered; this is House and it's really no grand surprise. She flicks her eyes around and leaves a moment later, seeing that there's nothing left for her to do.

-

Chase sees her approaching from a distance, and the defeat in her strides confirms that she too knows.

They meet halfway, and he finds his fingers knotted in her hair and her arms clinging to his neck. She breathes loudly in his ear but she's not crying, just a little more broken than before.

"Did you see him?" Chase asks delicately so he doesn't cut himself on her fresh new shards.

"No," she snaps sharply into his ear. Then her voice returns to a soft, frightened tone. "Did you?"

He'd thought about it, briefly, but he knows that he can't bear to look at what House has done to himself again. It's almost a part of Cameron to go, but that part seems to have shattered too, along with all of her trust in House. "Nope. He doesn't need us."

She pulls back to gaze into his eyes, pleading for him to tell her it's okay. He smiles softly, and even though people are probably staring, he doesn't care in the least anymore. It's the right moment, he thinks, and knows they'll make it out of this together.

"I love you," he whispers again, as her head falls back on his shoulder and a little bit of the pain begins to drain away.

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**AN: I think I'm going to stick to this canon formula, but we'll see how it goes. I've started the third chapter already, and reviews will help motivate me: )**


	3. Angel

**AN: Sorry these take so long, I'll try to speed up the writing process as best as i can. Thanks once again to enigma731 for betaing Enjoy!

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Chapter 3: Angel

_Chase me through the dark. Ready on your mark.  
__First to reach the stars wins a broken heart  
__one that broke apart, shattered from the start._

Love has found Cameron, once again. Love is old; love is new. Love is binding; love is crushing. Love is a cliché- two hands grasped on a moonlit stroll along the beach or a big white wedding with a big white cake and a big white dress that sometimes end up meaning nothing at all.

She's not sure if it was love before and she doesn't think she'll ever know, but there's something in Chase so sincere and scarred and soft that makes not loving him hurt. She's worked for so long on closing out the universe and now Cameron watches her facades shed in his presence. There's a quality of him so perfectly broken that draws her closer until all of their layers are gone and they stand naked, born again.

-

"Good bye," he says quietly as he turns to head up to surgery.

"Try to stop by for lunch, okay?" Cameron asks almost desperately, needing something real and good and _hers_ to hold on to.

"I'll try my best." Chase hesitates, almost about to say it again, but 'I love yous' lose value after too many times, and he always wants it to mean something. He smiles and she nods in silence, a binding farewell that will guide her in the dark of the day.

-

"House!" Cameron catches him wandering aimlessly, and whether he's avoiding his new team or Cuddy or the clinic she doesn't know, but he sure hasn't made it a point to avoid her. There's a sudden burst of anger and bitterness and regret for a moment; he's tempting her with something now forbidden, something she already had and lost that he found and gave away again.

But it dissolves away as he half grunts and turns slightly; the day is young and she knows his pain has yet to reach its peak. "Yes, Mrs. Chase?"

For an instant she thinks it's jealousy, not of their love or affection, but of the tie that they still hold onto while his frayed and snapped a long time back.

"Technically, I'd be Dr. Chase. And I have something that could interest you." He almost looks at her; his gaze is so close yet so distant, but not quite, never quite enough. "This woman is seeing dead people come to life."

She pulls out the file from the stack that she's cradling and House begins to search for the obvious solution, but this time there isn't one. Cameron holds it for a while, waiting, hoping, for approval.

"I could really go for a Mocha Frappalicious."

"What?" She looks up and he does meet her eyes this time, but it's not the same as before and it never will be again.

"I'm thirsty. You want to save this woman? Get me a drink." She doesn't even consider asking for his money, because even though she's at least tried to change, she knows House never will.

Then an older man walks by, older than House, and she sees her old bond reflected in him and now she's the jealous one.

"Here Bosley, make copies of these for everyone. And you," House turns to face Cameron again. "Don't forget the whipped cream." He limps away somewhat gracefully, and it's almost as if nothing's changed when really, everything has.

Cameron sighs, exasperated, and shifts the files to her other side.

"Those need to be copied too?" asks Bosley.

She nods unsurely, because House wouldn't keep a white-whiskered man with a charming twinkle in his eye around for nothing.

"Let me take them. You go get his drink."

Cameron hands him the stack curiously; this man's clearly not cut out to fill her shoes. "Thanks," she draws out, and Bosley turns and winks before rounding the corner.

-

"What the hell? I gave it to Bosley a half hour ago."

"It was not a half hour. It was ten minutes. And he made copies of the ER records first." It's been so long, too long, since Cameron was last here. She resists the desire to look around and see if 'time for a change' really mean anything at all, but she's not that curious, not that weak, not yet.

"Less lip, more whip. I only agreed to take this case because you said this Mocha Frappalicious would have whip on it."

She pulls back her outstretched hand and decides to use her final tactic before retreating to the lonely ER. "Fine. I'll refer the case to Foreman." She slips the straw into her mouth, suddenly aware of how much she hates her dependency on a stimulant just to get through the day.

"Can't. Mercy fired him." Cameron braces herself against House's desk, shocked and a little hurt that she didn't already know. "Gimme."

"He got fired?" She repeats, ignoring his plea and gestures for the drink. She's all the more aware of the dark that she's been stumbling through and how much it's been hiding from her and how much she longs for the light that she can't even see.

"Disobeyed a superior officer under fire. He's lucky he wasn't executed." House snatches the drink from her, but Cameron doesn't seem fazed.

"How do you know about it? You keeping tabs on him?"

"Girls talk," he replies quickly, a cover for his real source and a spark in her curiosity. His focus shifts back to his team now, yet she still stalks from the shadows.

Something in him _has_ changed, Cameron notes, but she's not sure what. There's a different quality in his voice- lighter, almost happy. Maybe this is the change he'd been hoping for months ago, a former lifetime, she thinks.

She's changed too, but only because she had to. Cameron's been shoved into a fast-paced world with a fast-paced job and a fast-paced fear of losing who she is.

Yet every morning she wakes and puts on her front. She's gone from stubborn and opinionated and rational to docile and unsure and illogical in such a short, drastic time that she hasn't even noticed the leaves fall from the trees or the sky change to a dusty gray.

Then House makes a 'dark, religious nut' comment and her eyes flick up, suddenly. Before standing on Chase's doorstep so long ago, Cameron would have let it slide off easily, but his remaining faith in god has given her faith in Chase, even if she has none for herself.

"Just because he's religious doesn't mean he won't kick your ass," she states quietly, gravely after he's hung up.

"You wanna bet?"

Of course he wants to bet, she thinks, but she's trying to make a point, trying to stand on the thin ice on her own. "No, I want you to stop being such a jerk to him."

Then House reaches for a hundred dollar bill, and Cameron can't help but wonder if he's been planning this all along. "One hundred dollars."

She smiles lightly at his taunting and considers whether this really constitutes as giving in or not.

"Smart call," he says while pocketing the money yet still tempting her wisely. "Guy's a wuss. He's gonna be the next one on the train."

"Define 'kick your ass'," Cameron blurts, her head suddenly filling with images of Chase leaving, Foreman, herself.

"Any physical confrontation-"

"Or verbal?" she cuts in a bit too eagerly, and wonders at what point she was lost again in this, him.

"Define verbal."

She considers, recognizing her newfound power that she never had as a fellow. "Anything over…seventy decibels. And you can't start suddenly being nice to him."

There's no start or end to the tunnel, but Cameron finds that she can dig her way out to reach the light. "You realize what you're encouraging here?"

Cameron's spent a lot of wasted time avoiding his games, when really all she had to do was start playing once more. "Yeah, someone kicking your ass."

-

It's hours later but she's not fading as quickly as usual, and she catches Cole leaving, almost as if this was planned to play into their game. She jogs down the hall, meeting his suspicious glance with her seemingly innocent one. "Cole. How's it going with your patient?" Cameron asks, lacking a better lead to what she really needs to do.

"Still seeing stuff," he replies warily, walking slowly across the cold, tiled floor.

"I hear House is treating you like crap." Her entire subtle nature is gone, and she wonders what else has died along with the fellowship.

"He treats everyone badly," Cole replies with a chuckle, and she remembers needing to know the why for this when she was at his point.

"Yeah, but I hear you're special." Cameron smiles warmly, hoping her eyes don't give away her real reason for her useless, awkward strands of words.

"Oh I can handle it."

They reach the elevator and she presses the warm button while considering her next move. "Maybe you shouldn't. He's going to walk all over you if you let him."

"That says nothing about me, just him."

She wants to hate herself for manipulating him, for falling victim to another of House's traps and setting someone up for her own gain, but the hate just doesn't come. "House respects people who aren't afraid of him. Get in his face. _Yell_ if you have to." Cameron's playing into House's plan again, consciously, and she's risking a job that's not even hers just to prove him wrong.

"I don't need his respect."

She stares blankly as Cole steps into the elevator, then resorts to her final option, wearing down to a thin faded line that at this point, separates nothing from nothing. "You do if you want the job."

He almost seems to consider, but the manner of his 'thanks for the advice' brings Cameron right back to defeat, losing to House again, and certainly not the last time either.

-

He'll never be as perceptive as House, but Chase is still more aware of what happens in the bustling world around him than the bustling people in that world are.

He feels eyes beating down on him from the observation window and the harmless quizzical stares he's receiving from the other doctors confirm that it's Cameron. He waits to turn though, pretends not to notice, because she's either here to deliver bad news or to talk about House, and he's not in the mood for that.

A year ago he would have been the one searching for her, for companionship or forgiveness or empty sex to drive away the bitter disappointments that were always sulking in the shadows, taunting him from the corners.

But now, now Chase is stronger, somehow. He knows no one else believes it; they think it's all a show . He's almost reckless though- he says what he wants and does what he wants, and it's not because he's turning into House.

It's because he's got nothing left to lose.

He knows she's left now; the glances Chase receives are probing him, feeding off potential chaos and others' misery. He closes up his patient and leaves silently to prepare for the next.

"Busy?"

It takes everything Chase has got to not leap back in surprise; Cameron's been waiting and the nervous flutter of her eyes and hands tell him it's about House again.

"Yeah," he answers gruffly, his throat suddenly parched. "Really hectic day. Sorry, I've got no time for lunch."

"It's okay," she says with a small smile. Cameron shifts her feet clumsily and stares through his chest, watching his heart beat and wither. "Do you see much of House's team?"

He sighs heavily and shrugs. Just this morning he felt more accepted than ever before in life, but time slipped by and he finds them falling into the same trap. Cameron may be blonde now, but the person underneath is still the same. He's being manipulated again, and she's going to break his heart once more, for all the same reasons.

She's waiting for an explanation, but he has none to offer. "I made a bet with House," she starts, eyes sliding slowly up to his throat. "I said Cole would kick his ass."

He stands a little taller and looks down at here with an all too familiar feeling in his gut. "Why would you do that? You hardly know them." _House included_, he thinks. The words stick in his throat and don't escape.

"House was mocking him." A beat passes, then another. "Just because he's religious."

A swell of emotions rises in Chase's throat and fixes itself to his now-forgotten words. There's a pang of remorse for his hidden anger, and a glimmer of pride that he's finally begun to chip away at the shell that's become Cameron and maybe find faith, maybe in him.

He's not speechless; the right words just don't exist to describe what this means or how he feels. Their eyes finally connect and for a moment Chase isn't so insecure; Cameron isn't so ashamed.

House is the one who brought them together, and maybe missing him is only natural. But they're the ones still holding on, he thinks, and they don't need House for this. Cameron pushes back some loose locks of hair that have fallen across Chase's eyes then turns and faces the door.

"See you later?" she asks with her back to him, scared of the new thread that's forming between them that would hurt like dying if it were to snap.

"Yeah. Come over," Chase says softly, then the door slides shut. "I love you," he whispers. No one is around to hear it.

-

"How's it going?" She no longer feels danger lurking when she talks to House, and while it's relieving to know that she has Chase's trust, Cameron still misses the thrill and risk that used to be there. But their roles have changed once again.

"Great. The only way he could turn any more cheeks is by pulling down his pants."

"He's not a wuss," she pushes while grabbing an apple and remembering Chase in the years past. "It takes a lot more strength-"

"Hey, we didn't bet on how strong he was," House cuts in smugly. Sometimes Cameron feels he's only in it for the money; the other times she has no idea of the motives but then makes it her goal to figure them out.

"So you're going to collect a hundred dollars and fire him just because he has principles?"

"What's your agenda here? Obviously don't care about the hundred."

She knew this would come up eventually, but it doesn't prepare her any more. "He's a decent, smart-"

But he always sees through lies- it's what carries House through the primitive mess of people, what sets him apart from the rest. "You don't care about the team."

It's true, she thinks, but only to some extent. She's fascinated by what they saw and what they do, by House's reactions to them, by the fact that they're really there, breathing and moving on the other side of the all-telling glass walls. But she _doesn't _care, she tells herself. Because caring only makes everything sting more.

"Does it annoy Wilson when you ask questions and ignore the answers?" It skids across her mind for a flitter of time that she's comparing herself to his best friend, but then House is talking, and she's thrown by what he says, because he hits the nail on the head and sends it crashing through the floor, leaving a splintered hole where her all secrets used to be.

"Very much. You only care about who I hire and who I fire…because you miss going through my mail. You can't stop controlling me."

"No one controls you," she laughs weakly, knowing so surely that it doesn't hide her cringe on the inside, yet hoping all the same.

"Want your job back?"

"No," she replies too quickly. No because she denies herself of what she wants the most. No because it's the right answer. No because she's supposed to have come so far, when really, she's frozen in the past.

"Too bad. You can't have it." Yet House will always know.

Cameron wonders for a moment what he'd have said if she'd told him yes, or at least stumbled over her words a little. But it's too late, she sees, as they reach the cashier and House's voice draws her out of her what-ifs and maybes and nevers.

"She'll take care of this." Cameron looks up, not surprised once again. "You can take it out of the hundred you're gonna owe me."

He walks away slowly, and she smiles dryly while reaching for money, empty yet satisfied together.

-

He washes his hands for the infinite time today and pushes the door to the operating room open once more. Chase doesn't mind surgery; he's always felt comfortable working hard and fast and on the edge to distract himself from the alternate world that's hazy and clouded with rejection and tears and shattered bottles strewn across the shining wooden floors. But he misses the mystery behind the surgery- the how, the why- and he knows he'll never have it back.

He slows when he sees that it's House's patient and House is watching, but Chase can't just hide away from every fragment of House like he wants to so deeply: He has lives to save first.

Chase begins quickly and absorbs himself into his work, until suddenly there's a disruption that's only going to lead to where he's been running from all along.

"You got any advice for me?" Cole asks quietly, nervous and vulnerable yet calm and rational still.

"Nope," replies Chase, because really there is no advice for how to deal with House- he'll always have his way and he'll always be annoyingly right.

"You always put up with his crap?"

"Yep," he answers smaller, hoping the pathetic man he once was will never find his way out again.

"Was it a mistake?" This is softer, gentle, but Chase is just sick of the sympathy.

"It was irrelevant."

"He fired you."

"He'll fire you either way…eventually." Nothing's permanent, Chase is noticing. For all he knows, House could die tomorrow, and all the games would break off and die with him.

"Dr. Cameron told me-"

"Don't want to know," he interrupts, because even if he's coaching from the sidelines he still gets to play.

"Why not?"

"Cause…House is watching." Cole frowns as Chase spares him a glance, all-telling yet almost nothing at all. "Not a metaphor. Look up."

Then Cole finally sees what Chase has all along, and maybe it's right to pass what he had on after all is said and done, after all the games are won and lost, after he learned all he could or learned nothing at all, Chase thinks.

-

"I just punched House." He's wide-eyed in shock and terror, yet Cameron finds it hard not to laugh at the fact that she's finally won, finally beaten House at his own game, just this once.

"Did he fire you?"

"No," Cole says, both stunned and relieved that he still has the chance that she left behind.

"See you tomorrow, then," she replies from down the hall and moving quickly, away.

-

"Cash will be fine," she announces while catching up to House's long, uneven strides.

"I bet you say that to all the guys," he says gruffly while extracting a hundred and holding it out. "Take your blood money."

She plucks it from his fingers, so much pride present in her silence.

"Who are you gonna protect next?" House asks slowly, not quite serious and not quite mocking.

"If I told you, it wouldn't work," says Cameron simply. There's a clap of thunder as she turns her back on him, promising herself that this time, she really will let go.

-

"Hello," Chase drawls out beautifully. "Are you finishing up soon?"

Cameron looks up expectantly and for a minute is taken aback by the small smile shadowing his face.

"Yeah. What are you so pleased about?"

"Dunno," he responds. "Just happy to see you." In all honesty he's not sure what's made him feel so light inside, but there's something comforting in having her here, Chase is beginning to see through the veins of ice on the window. He nudges his shoulder with hers as doors unfold before them to the outside.

The cold, frosted air collides with her exposed skin and she pushes closer to Chase, breathing in the warm, soapy scent that seems to define him now.

"Race you to the car," Cameron says suddenly, and then she's running and he's chasing her like there's no yesterday and no tomorrow. The dull gleam of street lamps lights her path as she sprints onward, leaving the hospital and everything it means and everything it meant behind.

He catches her wrist suddenly and pulls her into him, her back to his front, then stumbles awkwardly to the car a few feet away. Chase holds her hand back in one of his and presses his palm to the iced glass window.

"I won," he says softly, loosening his grip and letting her turn to face him.

"Cheater," she whispers, then she's kissing him gently, and the ice finally begins to melt away.

* * *

**AN: Let me know what you think!**


	4. Reflect

**AN: Hello again, and sorry this has taken so long. It's a lot of work putting these chapters out and keeping up with school and everything's always so hectic in my life that writing time is minimal to none. Please let me know if you're still reading this; reviews have been dwindling and I don't want to be working on this for nothing. Anyway, read and enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 4: Reflect

_Back and forth that voice of yours keeps me up at night.  
Help me search to find the words that eat you up inside.  
I go side to side like the wildest tides in your hurricane  
and I only hide what is on my mind because I can't explain._

Sometimes he wonders if he's even changed at all.

Chase knows that there's something new about House, and the world has shifted a bit, and Cameron's at least tried to alter who she is, but he's not sure if anything inside of him is really different at all.

He's positive that he's grown from when he first started working for House, and he's sure he's grown since he was fired, too. But sudden bursts of doubt overcome Chase and bring out the quiet, cowardly fifteen-year-old in him, shattered by too many concerns harshly real and forever alive.

Sometimes he still feels the same.

Sometimes Chase remembers how far he's come too, but then there's another setback that crushes him in all the same places, cracked once again.

-

The sun's beginning to fall from the sky as Chase and Cameron lay on his couch, a cross between laziness and exhaustion filling their lungs with each breath they take.

"I bet," Cameron begins, splintering the warmth of the silence they often find themselves in, "House will fire Cole next. Just to spite me."

He wants to say she's being vain and House really doesn't care; instead he's silent. Chase is all the more aware of how trying to change is so different from actually doing it, and if she even notices her old self breaking through the surface. "Oh," he says finally, softly, somewhere in the middle of a question and a nuisance.

The silence collapses in on them for another moment, a descending chill that echoes his thoughts that aren't meant to be said.

"You know," she tries again, no intention of letting this subject die. "I think we could make some money off of this. Start a betting pool or something."

He wants to tell her that forgetting House is what's best, especially for him, but instead Chase laughs a little and entertains the idea for a bit.

"And what? Collect money in the middle of the hospital while everyone else is working?"

Cameron shrugs. "With House, anything goes."

He almost refuses, because he'll take any chance he can to sprint away from the past, but he's being manipulated again, hiding away in his teenage self, and all he can do is nod and hold her a little bit tighter, a shield from the past that's closer than he thought.

-

There's a bitter frost enveloping Princeton, and goose bumps prick Cameron's pale, delicate skin as she steps out of the car. Chase comes and meets her at her side, gently and silently grasping her arm until she can feel goose bumps on her heart, too.

He's been quiet a lot lately, and Cameron wonders if she's breaking him yet again.

"Cameron? Chase?" she hears from behind, a voice that's all too familiar and all too out of place.

"Foreman?" She half-turns uncertainly and distantly feels Chase's arm fall back to his own side. "What are you doing here?"Cameron thinks about hugging him as he walks closer, but he is the man who plainly refused her friendship time and time again. Instead she finds Chase's hand with her own and knits their fingers together, holding him tightly, forever.

"Cuddy asked me to come back," he replies smugly. "I have to watch House for her."

"And you agreed to that?" asks Chase, finally finding his voice, and Cameron wonders if he blames Foreman in any way for being fired and losing it all.

Foreman seems torn for a moment, unsure how to reply without draining his pride until there's none left. Finally, he has no choice but to give into defeat. "I had to. Couldn't find work anywhere else."

Cameron nods sympathetically, wondering if she'll ever break the cycle that everyone identifies her by.

Chase shifts slightly, cold and awkward and still wanting to run away, faster.

They turn and walk with Foreman next to them, and he finally notices what's been there all along. His mouth curls into a smile as his eyes shift to their hands. "So, you two finally…got together?"

Cameron looks over; there's a strange shimmer in Chase's eye. "Yeah," he says freely. "She just wouldn't leave me alone until I said yes."

She smiles but it wilts quickly as they reach the ER. They must be a strange sight, she thinks, the three of them together again, except this time House isn't leading the way. They're moving down different paths now, and Cameron can't help but feel lost without the formula of diagnostics getting her through the day.

Chase and Foreman turn to leave, and even though they were never friends before, she has a distinct feeling that the wind is changing directions again, and maybe it's fate's way of telling them to never forget.

-

Chase finishes his first betting shift that was eons more successful than he'd ever expected, and it dawns on him that maybe Cameron's obsession isn't really obsession, that maybe she's just searching for clarity in the fog surrounding them, while all he's trying to do is get out.

A crooked silhouette approaches from his side, but Chase doesn't need to look to know who it is.

"Dr. Chase," House shouts over a few startled people. "Consult. Now."

There's a spark of lie reflected in his eyes, though, and while he knows he shouldn't, he know it's wrong, he knows he can't, Chase still follows, falling back into his old role much too easily.

House hunches over his desk, a smile in his eyes that doesn't quite reach his lips. "I'd like to place a bet."

"What?" says Chase quickly and a little loudly. "But you can't…you-"

"I know," House cuts in. "That's why we're in my office, idiot. And there may just be something in it for you."

There's an uncertain flash- the young, weak coward- but Chase pushes it away and stands a little taller, refusing to give in to the past, not again. "So you tell me who you're going to fire, I make the bet-"

"And we split the cash."

An uneasy glance passes between them, because even if fate hasn't intended for them to work together anymore, there's no denying they're a perfectly functioning team.

"It's pretty fair. Definitely worth half your winnings. And I can assure you that no one will see this coming."

"Why?" Chase says sharply, trying to hide his eagerness by staring steadily at the wall.

"Because I'm not going to fire anyone." House's arm extends, hand aged and callused. "Deal?"

Chase finally draws his eyes back to the here and now, gazing blankly at the outstretched palm.

"Deal," he says finally, clasping their hands together, briefly and uncomfortably. Chase turns and leaves without a final glance, seeing clearly through the still, glassy water that he's his own worst enemy.

-

"What the hell, I'm at even odds?"

Foreman's voice cuts through the air, dangerously sharp, loud and accusing as Chase enters the surgical lounge; it's almost like nothing's really changed, and nothing will.

"You really shouldn't be looking at that, you know," Chase says feebly while sinking into the nearest chair, too tired to put up a fight over the dark book that Foreman's so drawn into.

"You gonna tell on me? House can't fire me, you know that, so whoever bets-"

"Hey, I'm just responding to market forces. Their loss." He rests his arm over his eyes that are still stinging from the bright, metallic OR that's been less than kind to him today. What are you even doing here? Don't you have work to do?" Chase suddenly realizes they no longer share the same domain, his mind murky with exhaustion and confusion and the whirl of the rest of the world outside of these walls.

Foreman wants to say something, Chase can tell, but bites it back as he rises to leave, tossing the book onto the table. Because even if they _were_ a team, they _aren't_ anymore, and they've never been friends and never will be, and there's nothing left from before except the knowledge that they've gained and the ever-present sense of loss.

The door shuts heavily, and Chase finally comes to realize that what's been churning in the pit of his stomach since this morning is jealousy, plain and loud, because Foreman gets a second chance when Chase's never seem to come.

-

Cameron sees him approaching from the distance, hovering in the background, waiting to be found, but she doesn't feel like searching anymore; she's tired of playing games that aren't even hers.

"Your boyfriend has me at even odds."

Foreman's trying to be direct now, but some of his dignity was lost behind him; for once she feels like she has the upper hand.

"So…talk to him." She vaguely realizes that he used _boyfriend_- boyfriend like roses and hearts and candy- but she's never thought of Chase as that. He's much deeper, scarred. He fills her emptiness with his own, an eternal spiral of sorrow upon sorrow until it all cancels out and fills with a swirl of something less concrete than flowers or chocolate, but more meaningful, more sincere, more.

"I did," says Foreman, bringing her out of her reverie. "He said he's just responding to market forces."

"He is. I got a hundred on you," Cameron kids, but then his back is turning and she's not quite done yet. "What do you care what other people are betting on?"

"If he's trying to screw with me because he's jealous Cuddy didn't ask him to take the job-"

"Right," she interrupts bitterly. "You're figuring he's jealous of your misery." A step into the real world doesn't seem to have changed Foreman much, and he'll never understand that even if Chase _is_ jealous he _can't_ go back anyway; he's outgrown that way of life and is soaring on his own, just like Foreman never will.

"He's messed up enough to-"

"The problem is you're not miserable," Cameron interjects a second time, prying Foreman's eyes open to how lucky he is to still fit in.

"Then House has been wasting his time," he says more to himself than her, and Cameron doubts that anything she says ever sinks in at all.

"You've been humiliated, treated like crap. You've every right to be miserable. But you're not because even though this job is insane and House is insane, you like it. You always have." He needs to understand, to see that of course they're jealous and he would be too, to realize that now their worlds are forever crooked and gray, and Foreman still has the past with him now.

"You know what's worse than a sanctimonious speech? A sanctimonious speech that's dead wrong."

"See? You belong with House." Cameron smirks inconsolably before leaving, because wanting to belong is incredibly unlike from actual belonging.

-

She finds herself spending her break in the locker room, staring at her tired self in the mirror, unable to look away yet ashamed just the same. The reflection's fading quickly, and she doesn't have much time left before she's gone for good too.

Cameron's appearance erases just like her reputation; she's hardly there anymore. House has a new team, and all she's become is a washed-up rejection, her fellowship, her fifteen minutes of fame, dead.

Now she sifts her fingers through her thin blonde hair and suddenly she can't stand it. She wanted change, needed it, so she made it for herself, drawing her own starting line already beyond the finish. Cameron wonders (irrationally, she knows) if turning her hair back will turn back time. And if she'd leave all over again.

But she's sick of endings, she always has been, and she's getting sick of beginnings too. Cameron never lets go and she can never get a good grip either; she prefers the struggle in the middle, where her hand is slipping but she's still holding on.

She stands and looks closer now, almost nose to nose with herself, but all she sees is the outside. Maybe she really is that shallow, just the pretty girl that everyone's always seen, or maybe she's just built walls too think for even herself to see through.

Cameron can't remember what she's hiding anymore.

-

"House solved his case." Chase pauses. "It's firing time."

Cameron looks up slowly, her insides trembling though she doesn't know why. She sighs, forcing a smile. "Who'd you end up betting on?"

It's not an easy answer; even though he's not lying he's still not telling the truth, still keeping something from her, another addition to the list that's already longer than infinity. "No one."

"You didn't bet?"

"No," says Chase quietly. "I don't think he'll fire anyone."

Cameron stops walking abruptly, another moment passing where she feels she hardly knows him. "What? Why?"

He forces a smirk, feigning a laid-back front that's disguising the storm within. "He doesn't want his games to end. And they're all valuable additions at this point. It's too soon for him to get rid of one of them."

She gives him a hard stare, then starts walking again, silent. Chase doesn't know if she really believes him or if she's trying to trust him, but either way he's grateful she's not questioning this.

The lecture hall is tense when they enter, charged with nerves and pride and fear. Then House is talking and so is his team, and everyone else is still, clinging to his every word, and Cameron's slipping again, faster than before, and she can't hold on any longer.

"We're all fired?" Amber asks boldly, and a bolt of doubt streaks through Chase's mind that House could be playing games with him still, that maybe he's been lying all along just to see how far he'll go until he breaks.

"None of you are fired."

Breaths of relief, sighs of defeat, and Cameron's grim expression blur by as he fakes surprise then searches to meet House's eyes, blue into blue, yet two different shades.

Chase's smile fades as he nods curtly, understanding. Now they're almost equals, and whether intentional or not, House is the one who moved Chase up closer to him, and maybe it's what was meant after all.

-

"How did you know, really?" Cameron finally asks as they pull into his driveway, unable to hide her curiosity, jealously.

"I told you already," says Chase impatiently while stepping out of the car. "I watched them more closely than I usually do," he lies, a bit too easily. "There was no way House could decide."

She follows him into the apartment closely, still suspicious but out of ways to show it.

"Hungry?" Chase asks, eager to drop the subject while he has a chance. "We could order a pizza."

For a minute she's about to protest, but then she gives in again, sinking onto the floor as Chase leaves to make the call.

Cameron flips on the TV as he returns from the kitchen, starting to unbutton his shirt as he slides down next to her. "Sick of the couch?"

"No. I don't know." Cameron looks beaten down, and he realizes that she needs him now, she needs him more, and he's been planning without even letting himself know.

"Cameron," says Chase, bringing his fingertips up to the smooth skin along her neck, feeling her throat quiver as she speaks.

"Hmm?" Slowly she turns her head and faces him, the space between their lips only whispers apart.

"Move in with me."

She's almost shocked, almost pulls back, but instead she simply blinks then stares. She's not sure if he's opening up or pretending to, but either way it's a step forward from where they were, a step away from the past.

And while it goes against everything he believed in, so does everything with Cameron. His religion died when he left the seminary; god died with his father. Now he just pretends, but maybe he won't need to anymore.

"Yes," she breathes, then kisses him softly. "Of course I will." She's there almost every night anyway, and the nights at her own place are always so cold and empty. There's a distinct feeling of belonging here, and if she may never find it with House again, she can still belong somewhere else.

Cameron's lips part in a small smile and Chase presses himself down and onto her gently, tangled on the thin carpet as the news starts, the doorbell rings, and the first flecks of snow collide with the window pane.

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**AN: I don't know how far I'm going to go with this, but any feedback would be wonderful!**


	5. Pray

**AN: Okay, so the updates should be a lot closer together now that school's over. And thanks again to enigma731 for betaing and to all of my reviewers. :) Reviews make me so happy. Enjoy this chapter!

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Chapter 5: Pray

_We could just lay around, stare at the ceiling.  
__Want to forget about all other feelings.  
Room for photographs, box full of letters,come on, make it last.  
Nothing else matters right now._

At first the packing up and abandoning solitude is exciting, then it becomes frustrating, and not long after, it's simply unsettling.

Cameron's up and leaving again, but this time it's not away from something, someone. This time it's directly toward what she's denied herself for so long, what she's terrified to know and say and feel.

She's heading straight for love, a trap she promised herself she'd never fall into again, and there's no knowing how it will end.

Cameron insists on packing alone, claiming to only find time when Chase is either working or just too drained. She's worried about what he might find, yes, but more worried about what she'll do when she finds what's meant to be lost.

Her eyes swell with remorse when she unearths her wedding album that had been tucked away for so, so long. Her tears spill onto the pages as they creak and turn, and everything, then, now, just feels so wrong. She slams the book loudly, then sends it crashing into a box, to remain hidden for another eternity.

Sometimes Cameron wonders why she's the one leaving, why the world's become twisted and turned and the man who's so obsessively private and intentionally removed and visibly faded around the edges of the past is opening up to someone like her. Maybe he's giving her a chance; maybe he's giving himself another.

Maybe, though, through the intervention of a god she doesn't believe in, this is meant to happen because of more, an unfathomable fate that right now, is still beyond their reach.

-

"How much more crap do you have?"

Chase sets two more large boxes down in front of Cameron and stands over her, worn and tired, but still charged with anticipation.

"Not much more," she replies while bent over a stack of books, her hair running down her shoulders like a cool, shimmering waterfall, and there's no telling what it masks. "We need to decide on what kitchen set to keep and which bed frame to use. And I still have to finish packing a few more things."

Chase sighs raggedly before falling onto the couch next to her. "I could really use a nap," he hints. She pretends not to hear. "How about your dishes and my bed?"

"Why?" Cameron asks, sitting up quickly, revealing medical textbooks older than each of them and a few softened paperbacks that, if he didn't know any better, Chase would swear are romance novels.

"Less stuff to move around, he says lazily, dropping his head to her shoulder. "C'mon, aren't you tired yet?"

She stares for another moment at all of the piles and boxes and clutter, then resigns to spending another night putting off officially moving in and instead hiding from the outside. Cameron leans back as his head falls to her lap and she slowly runs her fingers through his outgrown hair, pausing every now and then to gently brush her nails past the line where his hair meets his neck, over and over again. The news is off for once, because neither really cares about tragedy after tragedy and they're done pretending they do, too. It's strangely quiet, a surreal feeling of the air being too heavy and the couch spinning quickly, even though this is what they're supposed to want.

But still. The walls seem to be echoing the silence with a new intensity today, and Cameron feels that, in spite of everything, she has to search for the real Chase, because even though they've been to hell and back together, he's perpetually hiding and she'll forever be seeking.

They each shift with the charge of the room, and Chase sits up and Cameron massages his shoulders, distracted, until her fingers ache just like her mind.

"Chase. Rob."

She can almost feel his smirk in the knots of his back and she's almost praying he's not waiting for something more, because she's leading him on again, and it's only going to hurt that much more.

"Yes, Allison?"

It's like her name was made to fall from his lips, for him to claim, and no one else. She stops breathing for an instant, then exhales slowly. "Will you tell me about your mother? Your family?"

She can tell she's angered him by the way his shoulders tense and his back stiffens, but she's needed to know for so long, and they can't move on at all without letting go of the burdens binding them to their yesterdays.

"Why? There's nothing to tell."

His tone is low and empty, and Cameron shrinks away, grateful she's not facing him yet wishing she could really see him just this once.

"I just…it seems like I hardly know anything about who you were before you came here. I want to know. I want…"

_To fix me_, he thinks, but doesn't speak it. Chase realizes her hand has fallen from his back and the space between them is an infinite number of miles, dark and heavy, and it's not what he wants anymore, not what she deserves.

"My father left my mum when I was a teenager. She drank herself to death. I was never close with either of them. And now I never can be."

He stands to leave the room, but with a backwards glance he finds that he can't leave here, now, that they're coming apart so they can regrow intertwined. Then Cameron's up and folding into his arms before he can move to hers, and they cling to each other until the dusk dissolves to night and the clouds release the stars and their hearts melt their uncertainties away.

It's a long while before Chase speaks, but when he does they can look each other in the eye again, and he's not so angry and she's not so scared. "I put that behind me. I don't want that to be a part of me anymore." He blinks, then grasps her hand. "I love you Allison."

"I love you too Robert," she whispers, then presses her delicate, rose lips to his as a single tear trickles down their cheeks.

-

"All I've heard about you- you put the patient above everyone else. That's why everyone finds you so annoying."

Cameron knows she cares for the patients like saving them will save herself, and she knows that it bothers people, especially House. But she still believes there's good in everyone, even after all House has changed about her. And if that's a negative quality, then she's willing to embrace it, because even though she's a little naïve and stubborn, she's perceptive and caring, which is what steers her away from the edge and back toward safety almost every time.

"All House cares about is results," she says finally, still playing a game, circling round and round protectively, defending a domain that's no longer hers.

"I know. I'm talking about how to deal with Foreman," Taub adds simply, just like she'd been expecting.

"So am I." Cameron smiles and walks away; there's so much for them to learn and so much for her to teach that she'll be connected to it all for a while, to the life she chose to leave behind.

-

They manage to share lunch today, even though Chase has a surgery soon and Cameron's in a less than patient mood. They sit in silence for a while, grasping at each other's comfort, until Chase finally speaks.

"What's bothering you so much?" There's a definite chill radiating from her bones as she sets down her fork and looks up at him, anger laced in her strained expression.

"Foreman's an ass."

"Course he is. What's that got to do with anything?" There's a flash of jealousy, because even if Cameron's pissed she's still involved with whatever goes on with House's world, no matter what the case. It's like she and Foreman bond over resigning, and Chase has to watch from a distance, because leaving was never his choice.

"I gave some of the new, well, Amber and Taub, some advice on how to deal with Foreman." Chase quirks his eyebrow curiously, trying to drive away the thought of how they didn't come to him at all. "I told them to treat the patient for lupus when Foreman thinks it's MS," she continues. "I said the results are what mattered to him. And it backfired."

Chase smiles softly, half-sympathetic, half-amused. "How so?" he asks, then wonders where House is through all of this.

"Foreman came to the ER. He sent this one woman wandering off somewhere as I was scheduling her MRA. I thought she was released," Cameron explains as Chase stands and she follows. "He was acting so cocky, telling me her headache was no big deal and everything." They enter the prep room as Chase busies himself with his scrubs and face mask, not quite ready to lay someone's life on the line, because the balance is off today, and it only takes one little slip to send a stranger speeding to their death, taking a little bit of him with them

"He was scolding me for interfering with his patient. Like he's my fricken boss. They're the ones who came to me."

Chase begins to scrub his hands raw, then smiles and laughs a little, immediately wishing he hadn't.

"What?" Cameron asks defensively.

"It's funny," he replies honestly, hoping she doesn't read too far into his amusement.

"It's not funny. It's totally immature."

"It is funny. You just can't appreciate it because you're the victim." _Or because you're too serious. And jealous of Foreman_. He doesn't even consider bringing it up.

"Yeah, I deserve shame and ridicule for offering a consult," Cameron replies huffily. "Unheard of for a doctor." Chase wishes this once she'd see things like the rest of the world.

"You didn't offer a medical consult," he argues lightly. "You offered a 'Dealing with Foreman' consult."

"For the good of the patient," she tells him, and herself, for the millionth time. "It's what House would have done."

And just like that the conversation's shifted into something so wrong and uncomfortable and piercing. Forbidden thoughts rise from Chase's core; Cameron wants to retract her words and what they mean and who she is, but time doesn't travel backward no matter how right it would make things.

"Maybe House will hear about it and tear up with pride," Chase says bitterly, because he knows House could care less about them, about what they say and what they do. And he can't move on with Cameron if she's not willing to let go and come with him.

"You think I'm trying to impress him."

_Of course she is_, he thinks. _But he'll never take us back, no matter how involved we are or how many puzzles we solve or how many lives we save. _House has let go, Chase knows, and he's trying too, but he may end up leaving Cameron behind. "I think that, for someone who's not involved in his team, you're remarkably involved in his team." His voice drops. "Let it go." Then lower, softer, slower. "Let him go."

She's had every intention of it, really, but she's not ready to sever the connection, not ready to give up yet. Cameron glances at Chase as he finishes washing his hands, and realizes that he's still here for her, but if she keeps this up then he'll be gone as soon as tomorrow comes. She wets her fingertips and gently flicks water onto him, a sign that she's ready to start fresh and march forth together, that she needs to earn this and keep it safe.

"And that's mature?"

She pouts to accentuate his point more, but her eyes are full of revolution- of confessions and remorse and determination.

Cameron turns to leave as Chase washes his hands again, and this time, he halfway believes her.

-

Cameron breaths heavily; she's used to fixing, but something about this time is different. Maybe because it's not where she belongs anymore, but this still has to be done, and it's either apologize now or never mend the tattered tie that they still share.

"Hey."

Foreman is sullen and so is the air surrounding them, and Cameron feels herself spiraling downward again; she's losing her grip on innocence and truth and everything in between. "Hey," he replies, and they both know neither want to talk, neither knows what to say, and that it's hardly worth it anymore.

But Cameron's ready for this, she needs it, really. Her bag drops to the floor as she lowers herself until they can see eye to eye. He's waiting for her to speak, for this to end, but it's not that easy.

Waiting won't make it any easier.

"When…when you were dying, you tried to infect me," she says blindly, because her near-collision with death is all she can think to say. "Because you knew I'd fight for you if I thought I was dying, too."

But Foreman' still hung up on before to even care "You're bringing this up now so I'll forgive you for messing with my patient?"

"I'm happy I changed jobs." And it's _almost _the truth, but _almost _is still a lie. "But I know I'll never have that sort of…excitement."

"You miss people trying to kill you?" He's missing the point, like he always does. The answer's always there, he just needs to look.

"No. I miss…people doing whatever it takes to get the job done." It's strange, she thinks, how a case so twisted and upside down and unnatural is the one that sums it all up so well. "I guess that's why I'm having trouble giving it up," Cameron confesses. "I shouldn't have helped them mess with your patient."

Foreman sighs, because he's known he's been wrong through it all, he knows he's not meant to belong and he'll never fit this new mold just right. "They've had to screw with me. I've gotten everything wrong."

Cameron's surprisingly defiant, and he can't tell if she's only saying this to boost him up, if she even means it at all. "I don't believe it. You're never going to get everything right. But you're never going to get everything wrong."

She smiles softly and leaves, because the tides are changing again and washing away what they had, and there's nothing left to say anymore.

-

Chase beats her back to the apartment today, and the moment he walks through the door he can taste the changes in the air; it's a new beginning, ending. He has time to do whatever he'd like, but there's nothing he need to do, or even wants. Slowly, after peeling off his hat and coat, Chase makes his way to the bedroom and collapses, willing to remain rooted to the bed forever, away from the hospital and patients and people. Away from everything he's ever known.

Maybe no one in the world was ever meant to love him, and fate's created his niche for him, a permanent future for such a temporary man. There's an inexplicable pull in him, though, to breathe one last gasp of solidarity, to find what only he can know then lose it once again.

Chase rolls off the bed and falls to his knees like how he's always pray, then falls further until he's ducking to the floor, and extracts a wooden box dusted with fallen hopes and memories that should have been forgotten by now. Slowly, carefully, he cracks it open, trying intently to keep the sunlight from pouring in.

But the letters spill out onto the floor, yellowed with hollow promises and shadowed fallacies and toxic reminders of tomorrows that never came. Letters that maybe, if he squeezes his eyes shut and tries hard enough, will still hold the scent of his mother's perfume buried beneath the alcohol. The old scars are opening again, laced with a new fear of abandonment he hasn't felt in a while.

Chase's mother would write to him every day. Sometimes he'd disappear for almost a week; other times he'd come straight home from school; every day there was a letter on his pillow.

Some were complaints- about what a worthless son he was, about how fucked-up his father was, about how fucked-up she was. Others were apologies, for making him live in this hell of caring for his mother and himself and pretending to the world that everything was normal. Others were promises. None of which came true.

Chase kept every letter.

He skims them slowly, waiting for tears that never come. He's an empty shell now- at least his mother could fill herself with liquor and sorrow. Chase has nothing.

He considers drinking for a moment, but his reasoning keeps him planted on the floor. Not to mention Cameron's response when she gets here to finding him passed out and cracked, surrounded by all things broken, nothing whole.

Cameron.

She'll be here soon, he realizes, and sniffs back nonexistent tears as he crams every last letter into the box and hastily shoves it back under the bed. Then he drapes himself on the mattress, alert and a hint paranoid. Chase opens the drawer in his bedside table to find something to busy himself with, a crossword at least, when his finger strikes a forgotten photo, and though less than a year's passed, it seems like decades have flown by and he can't even remember bringing this home.

Slowly he holds it out, hands trembling, though he doesn't know why. Chase gazes back at Cameron's image, the picture Emma Sloane had given him and he'd never had the right moment to get rid of it. Or the right intention.

He begins searching everywhere, knowing he must have a picture frame somewhere. He finds one much too large and one almost perfect, yet attached to another empty frame.

It's the best he's got though, and Cameron's sure to be arriving soon. Chase gently slides the glossy image inside the frame, of a woman who doesn't seem to exist anymore. She's staring at him through the glass, seeing straight through his flesh and into his core of emotions, and he wonders if she'll think this is strange or even stupid. But time slips away as he hears the door creak to life, and he grasps the frame tightly, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"Hi," says Cameron softly when she sees him. "How long have you been here?" _Home_. But it gets lost somewhere in between vocal chords and melts away quickly, the coward still living within.

"Not long. How was work?"

"Okay." She strides over and pecks him on the cheek once, and Chase feels so out of place, so domestic and habitual and _normal._ "What's that?" she says suddenly, glancing down at his fist.

He holds his hand out silently, and she waits for a nod of approval to open another chamber buried deep inside him.

Chase's head falls forward and she grasps the frame, staring wordlessly, waiting for him to take the lead.

"I got that…I…Emma Sloane gave that to me. You know, the photographer? I think she wanted us to be together."

Cameron smiles faintly at him, then slides her eyes down until he can't read them anymore. "Wait one minute."

She bends over a large box against the wall, groping for something intently. After a minute she extracts a large medical book, opens the cover, and pulls something out.

"Don't look." She smiles mysteriously until his eyes are squinted shut and his back is turned toward her. There are a few shuffling noises and then her heels clicking closer, his anticipation swelling in his chest.

"Okay, you can look."

Chase turns and opens his eyes slowly; Cameron's standing in front of him a little blurry, holding out the double frame, with a picture of him opposite her. It comes into focus slowly, and he's seen the picture before.

"I told you I liked your smile," she says softly, and it's still hard to talk about that point in their past. "Apparently Emma realized that too. She let me keep it."

Chase is quiet for a long while, and maybe, he thinks, she cared about him all along. Then he takes her in his arms, burning this memory into his mind, of her body falling into him securely, of her silky hair tickling his fingers, of the new ways they find to show their love, without even intending to.

"I have a nice smile," he says, and after all this time has changed they're still having the same conversation, but the meaning has changed. "I was looking at this picture when she took it," Chase says, pointing to the old Cameron, needing her to know, to understand, just how much she's always meant to him.

She stares at him for a flicker of a moment, then turns and sets the joint frames down on the coffee table. Chase comes from behind and snakes his arms around her, and nothing else is important anymore- not unpacking or work or even House. "I always glow," he whispers with a smile, and the friction of the words send a shiver through her that he can feel himself absorb. Cameron turns and clings to his back and pushes her mouth to his, closing out the world and opening to each other, building something more, something they've never had before.

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**AN: Review, please! Let me know what you thought, and also- would anyone be objected to some smut in later chapters?**


	6. Mercy

**AN: So this has been done and everything has been sort of retarded so it's un-beta-ed, sorry. I think it's okay though. The next chapter is about halfway done now, so look for it soon. I'm going to really try to speed this up. Enjoy.**_

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Chapter 6: Mercy

_I'm feeling out of luck. Maybe I just feel too much.  
That old familiar touch will always sting my skin.  
The good in everyone, the ties we left undone,  
the heart that moves your blood-  
all the things that bring me right back in, once again._

Chase was born out of place, and he was never able to find that place where he belonged. As a child he was always quiet, always observing, and that off bit of him was never left behind or worn away. Even before his family cracked, people would stare for a minute, because he wasn't quite like everyone else. Once he grew up and the life he knew wilted and died, people only saw him as broken. Handsome like his father was. Strange like his mother is.

Now they're almost the same, the looks he gets. When worlds crack down the middle they divide the then from the now, but it's so easy to see what you can no longer reach. Before the divorce; after. Working for House; now.

He lives in cycles, Chase thinks, and where they end and begin is a bit fuzzy, until the earthquake comes and slices it all, down the middle again.

He wonders why he hasn't fallen in yet. And when he will.

-

"Hey. I have a surprise for you."

Cameron's eye is peering through the sliver of the door she's cracked open, and Chase wonders how long she's already been here for, how late it is, how he's still standing at this hour after everything today.

"Ready? Close your eyes."

He squints them shut obediently, then the door opens fully and her warm hand grasps his forearm. He stumbles inside, remembering trust exercises in school, and how he'd always fail. "Okay, open them."

Slowly he flutters his eyes open, and when it all comes into focus the boxes are gone and the floor is cleared and there are small touches of Cameron now mixed in with his own life.

"I finished unpacking," she says cheerily. "And my apartment sold." A pause, then quieter. "It's official."

She looks up for his approval, and he glances around at the new trinkets and photos of people he's never met and Cameron's soft, nervous smile.

"It's great," Chase says finally, a little surprised and almost uncomfortable. "Perfect for us."

She smiles at his tired, bland excitement, then reaches up to hug him gently. "Thank you," she says, because mismatched furniture and different appliances and meaningless pictures aren't that important, but hands grasping and arms holding and broken hearts beginning to mend are. It's something new, something starting over again, one more cycle in his life that he's learning to share. And if it begins to end Chase will cling on until the tomorrows spiral away and everything stays the same and nothing knows how to break anymore, because he's jut so sick of losing.

"You tired?" Cameron asks, and sometimes the concern is irritating, rubbing the wrong way, like she's trying to compensate for the years past, but it's too late to change them.

"Yeah, but no more than usual," he replies slowly, eyes still catching on all of the differences in his- _their_ living room.

Her head drops, and she wants to know what happened today, but if he wanted her to then he'd say; she doesn't want to bring it up just to upset him. "Want to watch a movie? I bought popcorn."

It's so cliché, Chase thinks, yet something he's always longed for. It's another cycle again, a turn of a wheel to an almost normal life he hasn't lived in a long time. But it can't last forever, he knows as they sink into the couch and stare at the screen and fall asleep tangled and tied before the credits start to roll.

-

"Just explain the case to Dr. House. Explain it well. But act natural. Ready? Aaand go."

Then Cuddy's talking and House is playing into it all and Chase sits back and watches, because that's all he can ever do. Time's moving too quickly today, like the camera's set life to fast forward and the images turn a bit grainy too.

"Good," House replies straight into the lens, and even after over four years of knowing him, Chase still can't see his real motives.

"Good?"

"That means…go on."

"We have the patient on a pacing wire," says Chase, and he can see the camera spin towards him as his words fall from his lips and clatter awkwardly to the floor. "It's the only thing keeping his _haart_ going." And sometimes he almost wants to sprint back to Australia so he's not so _foreign_, but then he remembers he doesn't belong there either. Instead he just wants to fuse with the shadows, but it seems like nothing can hide from the black and white film that keeps on rolling.

"Yeah, we know," says House. "We're doctors."

And he hates this show House is putting on for the camera, because out of everyone he should care the least. "Right. It's- it's just for them." Chase is still playing House's games, despite his months of attempted ignorance. _Time for a change_. House doesn't seem to want it at all.

"Just be yourself," the woman says, but Chase doesn't know who he is besides broken. Surgery is supposed to be behind the scenes, and now the lights are blinding and everyone's watching and the camera's putting a whole new sort of desperate pressure in the room.

"Until we are able to figure out exactly what is causing the haart block, the reconstructive surgery is on hold, obviously," he says slowly, and hopes that maybe they'll just edit him right out of this whole documentary; after all, he's been forgotten before, often.

"That's yourself?"

Why House always has to point everything out Chase doesn't know, but then his stutters fade into the gray and House is up and talking, and it takes all he's got not to jump up and bolt out of the room and sprint back home.

Where home is, though, he's not really sure.

-

What cameras are doing here Cameron doesn't know, but she does know they're for House's case and that it has nothing to do with the ER.

She thinks maybe she should be surprised when they ask for an interview, but she supposes it's what she'd been expecting all along.

"I'm really busy" was the excuse, but it wasn't good enough and they're still following her closely, and yet the annoyance doesn't really come. It's something that has to be done, she feels, another step towards House meant to take her two steps away.

Then the red light flashes to life and it's this whole pseudo business manner, even though in reality it's not who she is.

"So before you worked here in the ER you worked for House, right?"

"Three and a half years." Short. Easy. But she's starting to get nervous now, pangs of remorse inside, and she wonders what's going to be brought up.

"Why did you leave?"

And her mind blurs; everything is rushing by so quickly- House and Chase and the past few months. But the patient is talking and she's all business again, as fake as the lies she tells herself each morning, and the lies she falls asleep to each night.

"Take off your pants," she tells him, because maybe a bit of humiliation will shut him up and make them turn away from him.

"Will you be able to use any of this if I start swearing?"

But this isn't supposed to be tossed away or blurred out. This is real and almost vital; her story is a part of House's; she's supposed to be needed.

"Did House treat you as badly as he treats his current fellows?" the woman continues, and this interview isn't really about her.

Yet Cameron smirks anyway, because now everyone will see him like he really is, not just a genius but a man who asks for every bit of loneliness that he gets. "Loaded question."

"Faaark," the patient cuts in, and his words melt away because even through all of the stress and agony and verbal abuse she still wants her fellowship back more than she'll ever let anyone know, even though they're sort of meant to.

"I learned how to be a doctor from House," she says as soon as the patient and the woman finish arguing, needing them, the world, to understand. "Or at least a doctor that learned how to be a doctor from House, if that makes any sense."

"And you left his team because you couldn't stand him anymore." She talks as if she knows and maybe she does, maybe everything tattooed in Cameron's past is starting to fade and _she's _the one who doesn't know.

Cameron leans over the patient, and the words spill out before she can even register what they mean and what they'll do. "No, I love Dr. House."

"There's something we haven't heard before," the woman mutters, and Cameron's head shoots up, realizing now, too late.

"I mean…." Then she sees the camera, and remembers that this isn't something that will just evaporate into the heat of the moment. "What did you ask me again?"

"Why you left."

"I loved being _around_ him," she pleads. "Professionally, you know." But they don't. "It was always stimulating. Not in an erotic sense of the word," she corrects herself; words and meanings and the truth seem to be going against her today.

"They forked. And then they spooned," the patient says, laughing.

There must be a certain desperation in her stare that tells them to leave, but the damage is already done and the ship's already sunk to the bottom of the ocean, split in half and swallowed forever.

"That's all we need," the woman says, and they're gone just as fast as they came, carrying all of her mistakes preciously on their tapes for all the world to see.

-

"Dr Chase! Can we have a word?"

He turns sharply on his heel and the camera crew is marching steadily towards him, but he's not going to give in to what they want.

"Sorry, I have a surgery," he says quickly, but it doesn't stop them from coming still.

"We'd just like to know why House fired you. Something personal?"

"It was time for a change," Chase says immediately, then disappears behind a set of doors into surgery, and away from diagnostics.

-

There's a shaky sigh to hold back her tears, then she approaches him from behind. Chase is busy talking to someone, either a patient or a relative, and the tension is growing exponentially with each passing instant.

"One minute, sorry." Then he turns to face Cameron, her hands knotted at tight as her stomach.

"We need to talk," she says, a little unsteady. Her eyes say it's her fault.

His heart starts to beat a bit faster as every rational and irrational possibility clouds his mind. Her eyes fall to the ground, and he wants to believe that he can forgive her. But maybe forgiveness won't be enough to fix this. "I'm almost done. Wait." _Please_. He reaches up to brush her arm gently, but she feels sort of bristly today, like her defenses are up when he thought all this time he'd been taking them down.

"Okay," she says quietly, her voice still as death. Cameron turns and sits on a nearby bench. He needs to know first, to hear it from her and not the documentary, but she doesn't even know where to begin.

Because the oversized tennis ball and the foreboding white board and the jarring cane will never be erased entirely from their past. Because as much as they pretend House is behind them they stand to face him head on every day. Because this isn't how their lives are supposed to be, not in surgery or the ER, maybe not even together.

"What's up?" Chase's shadow covers her suddenly, and maybe she shouldn't tell him after all. "What's wrong?"

Cameron stands and starts to walk towards the locker room where they can at least be in private, but his stare is unceasing and she's talking before she even knows what she's saying again. "The documentary crew came to interview me. About House." She waits for him to nod, then her eyes fall back to the floor. "I- I said that I loved House. I don't even know why. It's not even true." Her face flushes and she's starting to feel sick; everything she's denied is reversed and upside down; she's got to prove herself all over again.

"And I said something about how he was stimulating. I tried to correct myself. But it just didn't come out right." _It never does_, she thinks, and Chase's disappointment is so evident; she can feel it in the stare she won't, can't, meet as she enters the locker room.

For a minute they both stand in the doorway, then Chase slides onto the bench, bitter anger tainting his taut body. "Maybe I could just talk to them. Clarify myself."

He half shrugs and crosses his arms, waiting for something, someone, to change.

Slowly, Cameron steps up to the mirror, like it's her pedestal of shortcomings, and makes sure she can't see Chase first. Then her voice is suddenly fake and innocent, playing right into the camera like she promised herself she wouldn't. "I wanted to clarify something I said earlier. I love Dr. House." The words still sting, only now they're piercing into Chase too, making her want to recoil for breaking them both open again, right where they were beginning to heal. "And then I qualified it, which, after think about it, I didn't really need to do. I did _love_ being around him." She can almost feel Chase's wasteland of emotions inside of her; all he ever gets is rejection; she needs to make this right.

"I guess I just wanted to qualify what I qualified before." But then she's really staring, and she hates everything that she sees. "I'm looking defensive, aren't I?"

Cameron shifts to the side a little so she can meet his eyes if she needs to, but the disappointment is just _so_ overwhelming. "No, no. I think that's great. Clears everything up."

This time she does turn to look right through him, struggling to prove that she'll fix this. She sighs nervously, and maybe this is the ending she's been expecting. "It's no big deal, really," she pleads, but what she says can no longer be trusted.

"Course it isn't," Chase says, then he's up and gone before she's even breathing again.

"Really," she whispers. It isn't enough.

-

It's been like hell today, but Chase doesn't even have going home to look forward to. It's going to be hours of avoiding Cameron, until they pretend it doesn't matter anymore and let it all blow over. Or it never does.

Then Thirteen decides to watch the surgery, and there's something so irritating about her presence, almost like House, where she always knows if you're wrong.

But she's the one to spot the target rash that everyone so blissfully denied attention to, and now it's like she's a hero and he's ignorant, or at least it's how it's all going to play out in black and white on the documentary.

Then Chase shaves away the hair and everyone is watching, but only one face is clear enough to see. He stares at House even though they both know the diagnosis, but sometimes these moments never die. Now House can see Chase as almost an equal, as close as he'll ever get to it. Chase can see it too, and maybe he doesn't need to be bitter anymore. Maybe it really was time for a change; maybe this is what was meant to happen all along.

The exchange is quick, but the significance is great, and they each walk away just a little bit different than before. Better.

-

There's a crack of opportunity, a flash of a chance, and Cameron finds herself sprinting down the hall to corner the camera crew in the elevator, her breath gushing in and out like the words she never means to speak.

"Listen," she says firmly, looking the woman hard in the eye. "You can't use anything from the ER. You can interview me again, but you can't use any of it from before."

She's so different again, and it feels almost like the Cameron that worked for House has crawled back under her skin. But it's so clammy and uncomfortable, having that feeling there, and it's not who she is now, only who she's pretending to be.

But the camera crew doesn't know this, and Cameron and this obnoxious and intrusive woman lock eyes until it's clear to both of them how real this is, how much damage it could cause. Cameron can keep pretending to be like her old self if she has to, but it doesn't seem necessary because of how much she _needs_ this.

Finally the elevator dings and the cameras start to leave facing away from them, like she was never meant to be filmed in the first place. "Relax," says the woman coldly while stepping out. "We weren't going to use it anyway."

Then the doors slide shut and Cameron slumps against the wall; it's so easy to erase her words but they'll never really be gone. It is a big deal, really, and now she's got to start all over again. This time, though, Cameron promises not to screw up. She pretends this isn't the first time she's promised this, that she's never broken it, and that it will be her last.

-

She's the first one home today, and it only gives her more time to drown in her failures, her mind's circles traced in the patterns of her pace.

Cameron is nervous, and almost twitchy, and she doesn't know what to do once Chase gets here. She can't run back to her apartment anymore, and she's got nowhere else to go but here. It's a whole new kind of pain, of strangling and awkwardness and fear.

It's like she's hurting him again, but this time will be so much worse. Because this time it's the end of something real and solid, not some emotionless game. And it's going to hurt her just as much.

Then the door opens slowly, cautiously, and Cameron makes up her mind before she can even see him.

Chase finally steps in and then he's pinned against the wall and Cameron is kissing him, because it's all she can think to do right now, the only way she knows how to fix this. And it's just like the first time, except she's not high and he's not desperate. Just like the first time, and maybe it's meant to be the last. His coat falls to the floor again, and her lips are catching all the same places, with the same urgency in her grasp.

She starts to pull them away from the wall and to the bedroom, but Chase can't let this happen again. He turns his face and looks down sadly, and Cameron takes a step back like she's gone too far, hurt like she's supposed to be and a bit shocked too.

"Sorry," he murmurs, but it isn't his fault. "But I can't. Not…not yet."

It takes every last bit of her not to push him back up to the wall and kiss him more, harder, until their lips bleed and their bodies ache and their memories vanish, until nothing they say will never matter again, and only their actions can crush the world.

Almost like before, _exactly_ like before, but once you step across the line that defines love it's an infinite amount of times harder to go back.

She nods slowly, because she really can't afford to fuck anything else up anymore. Then she walks away and sits on the couch, preparing, deserving, to spend the night there.

Silently Chase strides into the bedroom and flops onto the bed, all achy and distant again. He was finally starting to find trust, but now it's shattered and swept away with one gust of wind. He's broken still, and he's starting to feel that it can only get worse from here.

The TV switches off, Chase hears, as he lays in a waking nightmare. The clock is ticking so loudly, and each passing second seems to hurt more, scorching his skin until he can't hold back any longer.

He stands in the doorway to the living room, staring for a bit at her silhouette dusted in moonlight. Then he stiffly sits down on the couch next to her, until she gropes for his hand and he falls down onto her, not quite fitting right.

They aren't ready to talk, and actions don't seem right either, so they lay in stillness grasping hands, like morning dew clinging dearly to a petal.

Maybe it's supposed to be a test, a risk to take that's do or die. A leap of faith, plummeting off of the edge, and you have to blindly, truly believe someone is going to catch you.

* * *

  
**AN: Reviews motivate me to work faster. Really. :)**


	7. Penance

**AN: This has been done for a while, but i needed to tweek it a bit here and there. I'm leaving to go out of town soon, so i'm just trying to get this up soon. Hopefully i'll have plenty of writing time on vacation...**

* * *

Chapter 7: Penance

_Looking back to find my way never seemed so hard.  
Yesterday's been laid to rest, changing of the guard.  
I would never change a thing, even if I could.  
All the songs we used to sing- everything was good._

"She's pretty," they would say, when she was a child. A teenager. Sometimes even now.

Always _pretty_. Nothing less, nothing more. From her mother's friends. From classmates. From coworkers.

"Appreciate it," her grandmother would say when she complained. "It's a good thing!" And then she'd laugh, and Cameron would stare beyond her, very distant.

Because being pretty isn't something she earned, but it's certainly earned her a lot. People look, but they don't see. They miss how smart she is, how caring she is, how strong she is. Because it's a shallow world, and all they see is pretty.

House only hired her because she was pretty. Not because he thought she was an experienced applicant or a competent doctor or even someone who would work well with patients. Only for the looks she was born with.

She hates being told she's pretty; she hates the word pretty. She hates what they all assume she is- a stupid, pretty girl. And nothing more.

But just once, one lone time in all her life, she wishes someone would tell her she's beautiful.

-

"Want to go for a walk?"

It's cold today, but it's the first real snowfall, with packing snow, for snowmen, and snowballs, and world-shattering car collisions. But the sun it out and it feels like hope, so she agrees right away.

The first step outside is something new, like starting over again. Like once the changing leaves were buried so were their pasts. Cameron falls onto a pile of snow and starts waving her arms, snow soaking through her jeans and numb drilling into her bones.

"What are you doing?" Chase asks slowly.

"Making a snow angel." And then she's up and pulling him down next to her, showing him how to move his legs and make an impact and fly from the ground.

For a minute they lay in silence, listening to snowflakes crash to the ground and melt below their bodies. Then Cameron stands and grabs a handful of snow, packing it tightly while Chase lays staring at the sky. Suddenly a snowball is flying, pelting him on the arm, and he jumps up to retaliate. First snowballs whiz through the air and collide, then they're throwing handfuls of snow, then Chase runs forward and tackles Cameron to the ground and breathes hard in her ear, a childish grin playing about his face that she's sure he never got to wear in his wasted past. Cameron lifts her head up and kisses him softly, cold arms wrapping around him.

But it's different that before. And it will never be the same again. The snow is melting beneath her, and she can feel the damp, pressed leaves biting into her back.

Chase knows there's something wrong; he can feel it too. All of a sudden everything is sort of smoky and his lungs are burning with ice.

_I'm sorry_ is all she can think to say, but it doesn't mean enough and she doesn't even know what she's so sorry for this time. Maybe for falling behind, for turning back when she promised she wouldn't. Maybe for refusing him over and over. Maybe for building up so much hope, then smashing it to pieces and walking away from the broken disaster.

"You cold?" says Chase, because even thought he can't put a label on what seems so out of place, he knows nothing they can say will fix it. Like the snow is made from cold misery, stolen right from their guts, and the only way to escape is to flee.

Because he's so used to running away, to hiding in the shadows until the anger melts, or the lies are buried. Until he's run so far there's nowhere left to go, and everyone from the past dies.

Now, though, his own time is running out.

They both walk back inside silently, but the wind is whispering everything they dare not speak. Cameron takes refuge in the bathroom and showers, and Chase sits stiffly on the couch, as if movement will wake his past.

When she finally emerges, it's like the battle is done and over; the dead are tallied and buried and the rest retreat back home. Past the betrayal and the shouting and the I'm sorrys, until there's only a vast empty battlefield, and they face each other from opposite ends, a stalemate of laments.

"I forgive you," Chase says while crossing the room to meet her, like he's known all along and maybe he has, maybe she has too. "It's going to be okay."

He used to think God could speak through people, that some things just had to be divine intervention because no human could speak so true. But now it's only him, and the words seem even truer. "We're going to be okay."

Like a penance, and absolute forgiveness. Back to the past again in ways he'd never even meant to leave behind. Cameron steps closer and folds into him, the only place she really seems to fit. Chase's arms come around to hold her tight and safe, as drops of water trickle from her hair to between his fingers.

It's like the gleaming, white snow brought them a second chance, and something about it seems to be more real than the water droplets, or House, or each other. Like maybe, if there is a god, He made it solely for them, and it will take hell and back for it to break.

-

House is striding towards her again, too soon, and Cameron knows that this must be a test of how strong she really is. And that it's her last chance; if she fails then the consequences will be real.

"Hey! Who's the sickest patient you got?"

It's strange- how House is looking for a case, how they no longer share the same patient, how everything still ebbs and flows like it always has.

"I've got a guy who will be dead in the next ten minutes," she says, fully aware it's not what he wants. Then he stops and she laughs, a bit more freely than she would have before. "Oh! You mean someone who will actually survive a diagnosis."

But House doesn't seem to hear her anymore, certainly not need her, and he begins to make his way around the ER. Yet it feels strangely like her territory, even though she doesn't really belong. "There's nothing here. Just the usual cracked heads, gunshots, false alarms." And it's hard to admit, but she still looks for the unusual, the inexplicable, because maybe if she can fix it she can prove something. To everyone. To herself.

"Who'd you pick to fill your narrow little flats?"

The question comes as a shock, like he's finally asking what he should have been all along. But it's a trick, she knows, the test coming, and she's not going to fail again.

Cameron smiles slowly, because _knowing_ is so much _better_. "So you could fire them off my recommendation? Nice try."

Then someone is calling and the subject drops dead, and House is taking her patient even though the diagnosis is clear. Everything's different again; House is finding something new and so is she. Cameron sends the patient up to him anyway, and it's not giving up or giving in. It's not her way of trying to get back in or reclaim what's hers. This is to move on, to take a leap and swim against the current, like she hasn't before, like no one's expecting, like she can't really breathe until she does.

-

Surgery's strangely slow today, as if all of Princeton knows it's the last case, the final decision for who will stay and who will go. As if they're waiting until tomorrow to crack open, to die.

Chase sees Foreman sitting in a waiting room, and even though they're not friends they don't really have anyone else, so he approaches anyway.

"How's the new us-es final case going?" Chase asks while sinking to his side. It's wrong, out of key, that the game is ending but he can't do anything once it's over; he's not even supposed to know it's ending.

"It's a moving target," Foreman replies. "House keeps moving it so I can't find it."

Chase glances over at the magazine Foreman's holding, amused and somewhat satisfied that Foreman's not really involved either. "So… you've decided to focus on solving the problem in Darfur."

"Taub is in there prepping the patient for a biopsy," he says stiffly, jerking his head towards the room behind them. "Stay close to Taub, stay close to House."

"And stay close to the game," Chase replies quickly, but maybe his motive's just the same. _Stay close to Foreman stay close to House, and the game._ He promised he'd back off, but he _needs_ to know who is going to replace him.

"I'm trying to stop the game."

"That's your role in the game." There's a sudden rise of jealousy, like nausea, because he doesn't have a role in any game, anywhere.

"You wander over here to annoy me?" Foreman asks while looking at his pager.

_Or to stay close to the game_, Chase thinks. Instead he responds with a joke. "You're not wearing a lab coat. House doesn't wear one, does he?" Almost to spite Foreman, even though none of this is his fault.

"Damn! Now when I walk away it's gonna look like I have a reason other than just annoyance." Then he's up and gone and Chase is left behind again, like always, and jealousy turns to remorse as he blindly walks the other way.

-

He decides to approach Cameron today, because they have to talk, to escape, because he's getting sucked into it all again and he needs to remember how to forget.

"What are you doing here? And why is your coat on?"

"We're going out to lunch," Chase says simply, but his voice has a strange sort of commanding firmness in it that shakes her a little inside, speaking volumes of importance.

She looks closely at him, but he won't return her stare as a few locks of hair shield his eyes. "Hang on. I'll get my coat."

Chase nods stiffly to let her know he'll stay and wait, and she wonders what's gone wrong this time. Cameron takes an extra minute when reaching for her coat, then turns to glance in the mirror.

She almost flinches at who's staring back at her, this soft, pale sort of nobody that she's got to stop running into, got to stop becoming. Then she turns away in shame, and she won't be ready to turn back for a long while.

"Ready?" Chase asks when she comes out of the locker room and Cameron nods softly, then reaches out to gently touch his hand.

But he feels icy and distant, and doesn't respond at all, so she slides her hands into her own pockets, concerned and sympathetic like he doesn't want her to be.

"Where are we going?" Cameron says awkwardly as they step out the door. Then Chase shrugs and she's sort of surprised, and even more so when he turns away from the parking lot and into the bitter wind.

For a while they walk in silence, and all Cameron wants is to understand. But Chase isn't talking so neither is she, until at last she can't stand it and stops dead in front of him. Then she wraps her arms around his cold, stiff body and buries herself. Maybe he's so rigid he's about to snap, though, so she just as suddenly turns back and keeps walking.

"He's replacing us," Chase says finally.

"I know," replies Cameron, hurting like she should. Maybe it's already sunk in for her, or maybe it hasn't yet, but the same sort of pain Chase has isn't really coming. Maybe it's because leaving was her choice, and if it weren't for House's stubborn ways Chase would still be in diagnostics, and she might be too.

"Like we were never there," he says right away, as if he can't hear her. "We _were_ never there. Were we ever anywhere? It's just replacement after replacement. Where the hell are we meant to be? Where will we be missed?"

Cameron stops walking again, this time next to him, and for a minute they each look far into the horizon. He's alluding to something deeper, darker, she's sure, but she doesn't know what's made these feelings rise again and she doesn't think it's her place to ask. "I don't know. I don't know where yet. But there's somewhere."

Chase shakes his head roughly and for a split instant she thinks he's been drinking. "Maybe some people aren't meant to belong." He stops, then slowly, as if it will hurt less. "Maybe that's us."

She doesn't even know how to respond or what to do, because as harsh and bitingly cruel as it is, maybe it's true.

Chase keeps walking though, like he's always known this, and all Cameron can do is follow. He leads them into a crowded restaurant and they're seated in the back corner, right where they can blend into the background, like they already have.

For a while they're quiet, absorbing the trivial rumors and superficial cheerfulness and the fathomless pain of the truth. "Who do you think will stay?" Cameron asks at last, as the silence disintegrates and their food arrives.

"Dunno," answers Chase. "Don't really care." But he does.

Cameron looks a little hurt, but she hides it quickly. "Oh." She doesn't even mention that House asked her, because he doesn't need to know, doesn't need to feel any sort of envy.

"I think he should keep Amber. She seems like she'll work well there. Maybe bring House down a couple notches."

Cameron quirks an eyebrow and nods slowly. Then she shifts a little closer, because there's a real, solid comfort in knowing someone's there, to listen, to care.

"I think she'll stay," she replies slowly. "But I don't want her to."

"Who do you want to stay then?" Chase asks, finally meeting her eyes with his.

_No one_ is the real answer, but it's wrong, selfish. "I…I don't know."

Chase nods perceptively, because he's reached a point where he knows what she'd say if she could, and where he agrees.

Then his empty hand finds hers and he smiles gently because she really does need him now. "It's time to move on. Let go."

It's not a warning, or a reprimand, or an ultimatum. It's the truth that only he could speak, where the words wrap around and grasp her heart until they're about to sink in. He'll wait for her, she's sure, guide her through trading her lab coat for scrubs; through losing the mystery, the puzzle, behind the patient, behind House; through the break-ins and lying and finding someone new until she can reach out and touch the ER like it's her own, and forget what diagnostics feels like entirely.

Through so much change, and he's willing to be her constant, to face her straight ahead and shadow the past, to see the hope in the new, to never let her fall through the cracks into who she used to be, because he's making her better.

"Okay," says Cameron softly, her warm eyes finding his cool ones. "I'm ready."

Chase kisses her suddenly, in the middle of all the chaos and whispers and lies. Until it all evaporates, until it feels like only today matters, and they really have to _live_. Until he can't kiss her anymore, and the bill comes, and they walk back together, hand clasping hand, and through the blur of snow they can almost see hope.

-

The minutes crawl by; hours take days; the anticipation is so heavy, so fierce, and when the moment finally comes his head is spinning so quickly his mind can't keep up, but he's got to stay in this, got to prove it to himself.

House barges through the door with Taub close behind, right as Chase is ready to go and leave someone else to deal with this, when maybe the nerves started to drain away, but now he's almost drowning.

"Good, you're still here," House announces, and Chase fights the impulse to shrink back. He's promised himself he's over this, over House, past the fear and need for acceptance, past the anger of betrayal, to a place where he can stand on his own and look at House as an equal.

"I'm about to leave," says Chase. "This better be important."

"Of course it is!" replies House, feigning surprise. "Have I ever wasted your time before?"

But Chase isn't his personal surgeon, and House has wasted plenty of his time. He thinks back to the past four years, to all of the effort he put in for House, to all of the torture he'd endured, to how he'd put his trust in House to not to change, to be there, to how little he got in return.

But he made it; in a way he's already played the game and now it's someone else's turn to. Because House isn't all that matters; Chase is getting by fine on his own. And maybe House knew he would; maybe it's all part of something bigger, a journey into the mist where the past molds the future.

"It's our patient," says Taub while rolling his eyes and handing over a file.

Chase reads over it slowly as they're explaining, and the haze that's been surrounding him is starting to part, and he can see where to go from here, to argue without looking back, but then House changes the rules again.

"Who do you think I should hire?"

There's an uneasy glance between Chase and Taub, the old and the new, and Chase almost considers fleeing, because this isn't something he's supposed to be asked, or answer, or even know how to.

"You want me to tell you in front of him?" he asks pervasively, and maybe the subject will just _die_.

"It would be rude to ask him to leave now."

Then Taub ignores the question that Chase can't, because who he _was_ never would have answered. And that's what House is expecting still. "If you don't do the surgery, the patient will die." For an instant Chase wants to cut in and say he's not brimming with empathy like Cameron, but Taub's apparently aware. "And everyone will know that you had nothing to do with it. And everyone will know it's because you're pissed at House for firing you."

But it's not the truth; he's not even angry anymore. He's past the shock and betrayal of it all, hovering between some sort of satisfaction and a faint paranoia, but Taub is right, it's how it will play out.

"Keep him and Amber," says Chase, shivering a little beneath his skin. "You'll get stuff done."

Then he's doing the surgery like he told them he wouldn't, giving in like he knew he would. But this time he didn't surrender to House or fold under pressure. This time it's for him, and it's exactly what he's been pining for all along.

-

There's another emergency surgery after House's patient and by the time Chase is finally done the sun has long set and their replacements must be chosen.

He almost considers calling House just so he can _know_, but the tension's still there and he figures House won't tell him anyway. Instead he drives home slowly, through inches of slush, and enters his apartment as quietly as possible. But when he opens the door the faint light of a lamp is shining and Cameron is sitting on the couch perfectly still, a book open in her lap but her eyes facing away, like she's been hypnotized, like she's remembering something long forgotten.

But then her head turns and she's talking before he can even react. "Hey. You're late. Something go wrong?"

"No," says Chase quietly. "House _had_ to schedule a last-minute surgery and then some other patient had some internal bleeding." She nods slowly, and suddenly Chase realizes how late it really is. "You didn't have to wait up."

"It's okay. I couldn't sleep."

He gets this creeping suspicion that there's something else keeping her here, something he can't fix. Chase walks over and sits down next to her, hair drooping lethargically in his eyes. "Something go wrong?" he mirrors.

"No. Foreman called." Chase perks his head up, curious and sort of left out, paranoia seeping back into the foreground. "Taub and Kutner are staying."

"Oh" is all he can say, feeling stupid for assuming House would actually take his advice.

Cameron's eyes rise to his, all too pitiful. "It's going to be weird. Different."

"Yeah," slurs Chase, but now that he knows the need to is gone, and there's nothing left. He sees it pass through her, the pain of realization, and he pulls her in close, so she can fit into the crook of his neck.

Cameron takes a minute, and a deep breath, then picks her head up and stares at him so closely their noses almost touch. "We do belong somewhere. Together."

Then he reaches up and cups her cheek, kissing her until the pain's dulled by distraction, and their hearts race with need. Cameron shifts into his lap and his shirt is coming over his head, and then she's dotting his stomach with kisses and he's finally able to forget. All of the anger, and regret, and pain wilts and dies, and Chase can see that while nothing's the same it's not really wrong. Change is an inevitable force, and to hide from that _is_ wrong. He's changed too, and still is, and there's no intervening with fate, so he's got to wake tomorrow and begin again, old and new, until the seas are calmed and he's who he's supposed to be.

Cameron moves up and kisses his jaw, and Chase falls back into it all like an old routine, standing up to pin her down on the couch. He kisses her roughly, more than usual, hints of stubble grazing her cheek.

Then her shirt is peeled away from her skin and her breath hitches in his mouth. The cold stings her back, until Chase sinks down onto her, wrapping his arms around her like he can shield her from all the hurt, everywhere. Her fingers work their way to the knot on the scrubs he's still wearing, and slowly they're untied, all silent but gasping.

Because words will break this; they're not meant to be said, or heard, as his pants slide down his hips, then hers, then he pulls her back up and they stand sort of clumsily like they can't balance the new way the earth has tilted, then Cameron wraps her legs around Chase's back and grazes his ear with her teeth, and he carries her to his bedroom, where they always end up when they're this sort of aching.

Then their lips part as he unclasps her bra and pulls off her underwear, and Cameron lets a shudder of anticipation escape. Then Chase stands and pulls down his boxers and climbs back onto her slowly, breaths coming shallow and hard.

And it's like before, before the trust and truth and love, when they'd hardly talk because of the distance. Now it's the same but the distance has changed; they're all too close and no longer strangers.

Slowly Chase sinks into her and she moans in response, locking eyes for an instant before he sinks down and catches her neck. Then a rhythm begins, of Chase rising and falling and Cameron's hips start to tremble as her eyelids flutter. Then he strokes her clit, sending shivers up her spine and she surrenders to his touch.

Like their hearts have torn through their flesh so they could reach out and touch each other. Like they're holding closer than they really can, and the pace is quickening as she starts to spasm beneath him.

He comes hard as soon as she does, then slumps onto her, still beyond words. There's almost a glisten of tears in his eyes, like he really needed this, and now he can finally move on.

Cameron lays still beneath him, sensing that he's reached somewhere without her again, but there's a sort of comfort in knowing he'll be there to help her. She reaches up to stroke his hair and he slides over next to her, gently brushing his fingertips past her shoulder.

"You're beautiful," he whispers at last, and her lips spread into a soft smile as a shimmering tear slides down her cheek.

* * *

**AN: This was sort of the turning point for Chase, and now i think things will be a little brighter for him. so...love it or hate it? all reviews welcome. :)**


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